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WORMS.

11

agreeable breath, gripes, looseness, swelling of the belly, swoonings,loathing of food, and at other times a voracious appetite, a drycough, convulsions, epileptic fits, and sometimes a privation ofspeech. These worms have been known to perforate the intes-tines, and get into the cavity of the belly. The effects of the tape-worm are nearly the same with those of the long and round, butrather more violent.

Andry says, the following symptoms particularly attend the soli-um, which is a species of the tape-worm, viz. swoonings, privationof speech, and a voracious appetite. The round worms calledascarides, besides an itching of the anus, cause swoonings, andtenesmus, or an inclination to go to stool.

Causes. — Worms may proceed from various causes ; but thevare seldom found except in weak and relaxed stomachs, where thedigestion is bad. Sedentary persons are more liable to them thanthe active and laborious. Those who eat great quantities of unripefruit, or who live much on raw herbs and roots, are generally sub-ject to worms. There seems to be an hereditary disposition insome persons to this disease. I have often seen all the children ofa family subject to worms of a particular kind. They seem like-wise frequently to be owing to the nurse. Children of the samefamily nursed by one woman have often worms, when those nursedby another have none.

Symptoms. — The common symptoms of worms are, paleness ofthe countenance, and, at other times, an universal flushing of theface; itching of the nose (this, however, is doubtful, as childrenpick their noses in all diseases;) starting, and grinding of the teethin sleep; swelling of the upper lip; the appetite sometimes bad, atother times quite voracious; looseness; a sour or stinking breath;a hard swelled belly; great thirst; the urine frothy, and sometimesof a whitish colour ; griping, or colic pains ; an involuntary dis-charge of saliva, especially when asleep ; frequent pains of theside, with a dry cough, and unequal pulse; palpitations of theheart ; swoonings, drowsiness, cold sweats, palsy, epileptic fits,with many other unaccountable nervous symptoms, which wereformerly attributed to witchcraft, or the influence of evil spirits.Small bodies in the excrements resembling melon or cucumber-seeds are symptoms of the tape-worm. There is no certain symp-tom of worms but passing them.

I lately saw some very surprising effects of worms in a girlabout five years of age, who used to lie for whole hours as if dead.She at last expired, and upon opening her body, a number of theteres, or long round worms, were found in her intestines, whichwere considerably inflamed; and what anatomists call an intus-si/s-eeptio, or the involving of one part of the gut within another, hadtaken place in no less than four different parts of the intestinalpanal.*

* That worms exist in the human body there can be no doubt, and that they mustsometimes be considered as a disease, is equally certain ; but this is not the case sooften as people imagine. The idea that worms occasion many diseases, gives an op-portunity to the professed worm-doctors of imposing on the credulity of mankind, and