H E 'L M I N T 
wi fired ; for on the one hand there are worms peculiar 
to the liver., lungs, pancreas, kidneys, &c. which are ne¬ 
ver found in the inteftines; and on the other, there are 
five genera, viz. Gordius, Lumbricus, Hirudo, Sipun- 
Cttlus, and Planaria, that never enter the -animal‘body 
at all, unlefs by accident; and-which therefore cannot be 
.iniejliiml worms ; whence dome natural ids have fubfti- 
-<t tiled-the term vermes vifccra'ks. This claflification too, 
- from fo high tap .authority, has given countenance to a 
vulgar error conceived in-the earlieft of times, and pro- 
.pagatedalmoftito -theiprefent day, that worms found in 
the :body are no.t inbred , but are taken into the ftomach 
with raw vegetable food or fruit, or by drinking water, 
,:in which fome young worms, offtheirovula, might hap¬ 
pen to be depofited ; and hence very-grave phyficians, 
as well as the bulk of mankind, have been led to ima¬ 
gine that worms, or the rudiments of them," thus taken 
in by the/mou.th, are conveyed to different feats in the 
animal body, where finding a convenient nidus, favour¬ 
able warmth, and nourifhment, they there live and-mul¬ 
tiply, until they endanger the life of the animal b.y their 
numbers. Hence fome infill that fheep, feeding in wet 
paflures, acquire the .rot by fwallowing the ovula or 
eggs.of aquatic worms depofited on the grafs ; whilft 
•thers contend that the difeafe is given by a particular 
kind of herb, .{Ranunculus jlamrmLa, Linn.) the leaf of 
which exadlyrefem'bles the figure of the fluke or gourd- 
worm, and blifters the tongue ; therefore hufbandmen 
and graziers.are adually in the-habit df examining their 
aftures in fearch of this herb, which they call the rot ; 
ecaufe the rot in fheep (has the appearance of blifters 
or bladders on the liver ; and, wherever they -find it, 
they pronounce the paflure to be infeded ; thus believ¬ 
ing a vegetable to be endued with the power of giving 
life to worms in fheep, jlift as ferioufly as fome dodors 
pronounce raw vegetables and unripe fruit to beget 
worms in the primes vies of the human fubjed. 
On the continent, but particularly in Germany, this 
branch'of natural hiftory has been for fome years pad 
more attentively inveftigated. ProfefTor Pallas, Wer¬ 
ner, Goeze, Muller, Bloch, Schroeder, and others, have 
taken infinite pains to difcover and deted the habitudes 
.and economy of this ambiguous clafs of animals, in or¬ 
der to afcertain their origin, number, office, and mode 
of propagation. And with a view to the encourage¬ 
ment of this interefting enquiry, the Royal Society of 
Copenhagen propofed as a prize queftion, in 1780, 
“Whether the feeds of inteflinal worms be innate ; or 
whether they be communicated from without , after birth.” 
The opinion, that the germ or feed of every inteflinal 
worm (feminium verminofum) mutt, be innate , was counte¬ 
nanced by the ancient philofophers, and adopted by 
fubfequent phyfrologifts and phyficians ; fuch as Hart- 
foeker, Valifnieri,. Andry, Clericus, and even by Hip¬ 
pocrates ; becaufe they were aware of the improbabi¬ 
lity of fuch worms being planted in the. vifeera by any 
foreign or external agent. And though they failed of 
demonftrating the fait by pofitive proofs from the econo¬ 
my of. nature; yet they dichnot deferve the ridicule call 
upon them by fome more modern writers on Natural 
Tiiftory ; who, without being able to refute their hypo- 
ihefes, boldly denied them, and afferted that inteflinal 
worms were communicated by fwallowing the young, or 
the ovula, of the common earth-worm, or of water- 
worms ; and that other vifceral worms were derived 
from the atmofphere, by inhaling the animalcules float¬ 
ing in the air, which finding warmth and nourifhment in 
the region of the refpirable organs, would put on a new 
form, increafe in bulk, and perhaps, like infeds, under¬ 
go various metamorphofes, until the lungs, the liver, 
.and parts fublervient to found health, become impaired 
.by them ; and hence the various dileafes occafioned by 
worms in men and animals. 
The infufficiency of this conclufion induced the phy- 
fiologifts of the eighteenth century to fearch more deeo- 
Vpl. IX. No. 589. V 
1 H G ;L Q G Y. Ml 
ly for it he habitations of thefe parafitical tribes; for 
which pur-pole a number of different animals were dif- 
Teded ; and the human fabric, whenever opportunity 
occurred, .was diligently examined for the detedion of 
them ; while the enquiry and .information were molt 
happily facilitated by the .improved magnifying-.powers 
of the microfcope. Pallas was-the.frrft who, tin his Diff. 
de Infeflis,’&c. attradedithe public attention to .this fub¬ 
jed, by fome ver>» important experiments and oblerva- 
tions, tending to prove that thefe worms were a diftindt 
order of beings, different from every other kind, and ca- 
pable ofibeing arranged under genera and fpecies of their 
own, in-the fame manner that otfier c-lalles of animals are. 
Goeze and Muller followed .up .thefe obfervations 
with equal ardour and fuccefs ; and enriched them with 
a flill greater, number of elegant diffedions ; ail of which 
were publifhed and illuftrated by engravings ; whereby 
the flrudture and organization of the inteflinal worms 
are contrafled with tiiofe deflined to live in earth and 
•water, as well as with thofe of the Infuforia order of 
animalcules; from all which, very cogent.reafons are 
affigned why inteflinal worms could never be communi¬ 
cated from without. Goeze, indeed, admits that tadpoles, 
■the larvae of frogs, of lizards, &rc. and the Gordius aqua- 
ticus, or hair-worm, and even the common earth-worm, 
have fometime3 been received into the ftomach by drink¬ 
ing impure water, and have occafioned very fingular 
fymptoms v before they could be thrown off, or evacu¬ 
ated by flool; but here the evil of all fuch accidental 
vifitants ends. He denies that the Lumbricus terreftris, 
or earth-worm, is ever found as an inhabitant in the hu¬ 
man fubjed, though infifled upon by fo many medical 
,men. Neither are the botts in horfes, nor any of the 
oeftri genus, nor larvae depofited in the cuticle, to be 
confidered at all as worms; for they are perfect infedts. 
See the article Farriery, vol. vii. p. 255; anddhe 
correfpondent Engraving. See alfo the article Oestru s. 
It has likewifebeen proved, that worms which enter 
the ftomach of animals from, without , inftead of finding 
a nidus in the vifeera are foon difl’olved and digefted, , 
unlefs immediately brought up by an emetic ; in which 
cafe they are returned generally alive, though in a lan¬ 
guid flate. But whenever they pafs the pylorus, and 
are evacuated by flool, if any of them are found, or parts 
of them, not diffidently macerated, it argues a weaknefs 
in the powers of digeftion, rather than any ability in 
thofe animals to maintain their exiftence in a region for 
which they were never formed. In differing the fto¬ 
mach of frogs, Goeze not unfrequently met with bundle* 
of the Gordius aquaticus under different ftages of digef¬ 
tion ; from which it appeared that the frcfgs had devoured 
them as food, inftead of affording them an afylum for 
life, and growth, and nourifhment, in their inteftines. 
And juft fo it is that inteflinal worms cannot furvive 
their expulfion /from the vifeera; nor can a fingle in¬ 
fiance be adduced of either afearides, taeniae, fafciolae, 
echiporhynchi, or other worms inhabiting the animal 
body, ever having been difeovered in a living Hate, in 
any fubftance or matter whatfoever, out of the body. It 
is indeed true that Df. Unzer, of Helmefladt, found a 
tapeworm in a well ; and that parcels of them were alfo 
difeovered in afmall rivulet; the my fiery of which was 
Toon unravelled by the vigilance of Muller; for on an 
application to Dr. Unzer and fome other perfons, and 
after an examination of the worms, he found that the 
one had been voided by a child and thrown into the 
well; and that the others had beemthrown oft' by a nu¬ 
merous breed of carp, which are extremely fubjed to 
them; and thus the fad was afeertained ; but tiie worms 
were dead in the water, a proof 'that they could not 
live out’of the region from which they had been ex¬ 
cluded. Many experiments have been tried for the 
purpofe of endeavouring to keep inteflinal worms alive, 
after being taken from the body ; but no medium has 
yet been difeovered in which they could exift for any 
4 S length 
