MMATOZOON INHABITING HUMAN BLOOD. 53 
of elongating or shortening itself. Mr. Lewis infers, from 
the fact of its being so enclosed in a structureless membrane, 
that its home is the blood, and that it has no means of per¬ 
forating the tissues. 
The question arises as to the origin or morbid significance 
of these filariae. Mr. Lewis first noticed them two years 
ago in the urine of a patient much emaciated, and passing 
chylous urine. In July of the present year, whilst ex¬ 
amining the blood of a native suffering from diarrhoea, he 
observed nine minute nematoid worms in a state of great 
activity on a single slide. He and Dr. Douglas Cunningham 
agreed that the worms were of the same kind as had been 
observed in the patient with chylous urine. Mr. Lewis has 
examined the urine in from fifteen to twenty cases of 
chyluria, associated with more or less marked haematuria, 
chiefly, by the way, in women, and the microscopic filariae 
have been present on every occasion. Of the persons thus 
affected, five were of pure European parentage, but three of 
them were born in India; the remainder were either East 
Indians or natives in about equal proportion. The patient 
in whose urine the filariae were first detected in March, 
1870, disappeared, but Mr. Lewis has lately seen him. The 
urine looks healthy, but the blood contains hsematozoa. The 
following is the summary with which the author concludes 
the account of his interesting and important discovery: 
“ (1) It has been shown that the blood of persons who 
have lived in a tropical country is, and not rarely, invaded 
by living microscopic filariae, hitherto not identified with 
any known species, which may continue in the system for 
months or years without any marked evil consequences being 
observed; but which may, on the contrary, give rise to 
serious disease and ultimately be the cause of death. 
“ (2) That the phenomena which may be induced by the 
blood being thus affected is probably due to the mechanical 
interruption offered (by the accidental aggregation, perhaps, 
of the haematozoa) to the flow 7 of the nutritive fluids of the 
body in various channels, giving rise to the obstruction of 
the current wdthin them or to rupture of their extremely 
delicate w r alls, thus causing the contents of the lacteals, 
lymphatics or capillaries, to escape into the most convenient 
excretory channel; such escaped fluid, as has been demon¬ 
strated in the case of the urinary and lachr} r mal or Meibo¬ 
mian secretion, may be the means of carrying some of the 
filariae with it out of the circulation : these occurrences being 
liable to recur after long intervals—so long, in fact, as the 
filariae continue to dwell in the blood. 
