EXTRACT  OF  MALE  FERN. 
443 
admission,  the  treatment  is  commenced  by  giving  an  ordinary 
two -ounce  black  draught ;  on  the  following  day  all  solid  food 
is  forbidden,  but  an  almost  unlimited  supply  of  beef  tea  is  al- 
lowed ;  even  milk,  which  is  said  to  be  the  favorite  food  of  the 
worm,  I  purposely  forbid.  On  the  evening  of  this  day,  half 
an  ounce  of  castor  oil  is  administered ;  and  early  on  the  follow- 
ing morning,  about  thirty-four  hours  after  taking  the  black 
draught,  two  fluid-drachms  of  the  oil  of  male-fern  are  given, 
suspended  in  two  ounces  of  thin  mucilage  of  acacia.  The  re- 
sult, without  an  exception,  in  every  case  which  I  have  thus 
treated,  has  been  the  expulsion  of  a  dead  worm  within  two 
hours  after  taking  the  remedy,  and  in  one  instance  the  worm 
was  past  in  fifteen  minutes. 
I  have  had  no  difficulty  in  getting  the  patients  to  submit 
to  this  mode  of  treatment,  nor  have  they  complained  of  hunger. 
In  order,  however,  to  enable  them  to  bear  without  much  dis- 
comfort the  prolonged  abstinence  from  solid  food,  the  supply 
of  good  beef-tea  has,  as  I  have  stated,  not  only  been  unlimited, 
but  each  patient  has  also  been  kept  in  bed  during  the  whole  of 
the  treatment. 
"  The  principle  of  this  mode  of  treatment  is,  evidently,  sim- 
ply that  of  emptying  the  stomach  and  small  intestines  by  ab- 
staining from  all  solid  food,  and  by  purging ;  and  so,  by  thus 
thoroughly  uncovering  the  worm,  exposing  it  to  the  full  and 
•  almost  immediate  action  of  the  remedy. 
"  I  have  never,  in  a  single  instance,  given  more  than  one 
dose  of  the  drug  before  the  parasite  was  expelled ;  nor  has  the 
two- drachm  dose,  given  as  I  have  mentioned,  caused  vomiting 
or  troublesome  purging;  and  in  every  case  the  worm  was 
passed  dead,  and  generally  in  one  unbroken  piece.  No  medi- 
cine of  any  kind  is  given  except  that  which  I  have  before 
mentioned  ;  and,  in  a  few  hours  after  the  worm  is  passed,  the 
patients  are  restored  to  their  ordinary  diet. 
"  Before  I  was  in  the  habit  of  preparing  patients  by  the  pre- 
vious purging  and  abstinence  which  I  have  described,  I  gene- 
rally found  that  the  oil  of  male-fern  failed  as  a  remedy  for  the 
cases  under  consideration ;  but  since  I  have  adopted  the  mode 
