moment the pain ceased, and never returned, though a great soreness continued for several weeks. After using it for a month, he made an attempt to discontinue it, but with an evident and certain threatening of all those dreadful symptoms with which he had been too familiarly acquainted.

After wearing this mechanical remedy for two or three months, health of body and peace of mind were perfectly restored; and, to crown the whole, neither bleeding piles have recurred, nor any other disease has as yet made its appearance.

My reading has not been very extensive, though my practice is as much so as falls to the lot of country practitioners of medicine and surgery generally; and I am candid in declaring, I never have met with a case, in reading or practice, altogether parallel with this; and never a case, of any kind or degree, where the remedy appeared so completely fitted to the cure of a disease!!!

I shall leave you and others to make what comments on this case you please, being persuaded myself that many distressing cases of piles frequently occur, though seldom of equal violence with the one above recited, which might have been relieved in a day by this simple means, that have, for the want of better knowledge, continued for weeks, and months, notwithstanding the application of the boasted remedies of physicians, quacks, and old women. If you think this case deserving a place in your useful Repository, it is at your service; but for obvious reasons my name must be withheld.

ARTICLE V.

ACCOUNT of a remarkable CASE of WORMS: Communicated by Dr. FELIX PASCALIS, of Philadelphia, to Dr. MIller.

SIR,

THE

Philadelphia, December 10, 1803.

HE discovery of a non-descript intestinal worm or insect, by Dr. Stringham, as published in Hex. I. vol. vi. p. 262 of your Repository, I have the pleasure to confirm by a case which recently occurred in my practice, and which has put in my possession one of these hideous insects, perfectly similar to the largest of the four which are so well represented in the plate annexed to the communication alluded to.

An English boy, aged seven years, of muscular habit,

lively turn, and healthy constitution, was lately my patient for a fever, which, by its continuity, seemed to differ much from the usual type of our malignant epidemic. I saw him on the fourth day he complained of no affection in the stomach: he could sit up: but his pupils were much enlarged; and I observed convulsive motions of his hands and feet. This circumstance, with the striking transparency of his face, fixed my attention only to the common ailment of worms; and to expel them I successively employed bitter and mercurial doses, but without effect. The inflammatory diathesis increased so much that I bled him myself, to have the opportunity of administering a more powerful dose, immediately after and during the temporary relaxation which is caused by bleeding.. My expectation was again disappointed; but, at last, two glasses of Port wine and sweet oil promoted instantly the discharge of five of those pedicular insects. Four of them were thrown away, but the largest 1 washed myself, and submitted it to minute observation. It is perfectly similar to the largest of your plates, bearing that kind of semicircular shellwhich adapts itself to the lowest extremity of the body. This and the back part are cartilaginous, while its numerous legs and antennæ are vesicular, transparent, and gelatinous-like. I immersed it in a reduced alcoholic fluid, where it remains unaltered.

Is it not one of the Aptera, of the cancer or oniscus kind, or perhaps a pediculus? From these it does not materially differ but by want of eyes, which are not necessary to its existence. After the expulsion of the whole family, and of a few lumbrics, a considerable discharge of blood from the bowels, with other symptoms, presented the case as very alarming; but it turned out to be a malignant fever, although the season had already advanced to the middle of November, and there had been some frost.

With great difficulty the boy recovered; but to that strange and devouring kind of insect I could trace no particular circumstance of the disease, except the hæmorrhage. Like the acarus, perhaps, it strongly adheres to the internal mem

branes.

It is to be regretted, that, through reluctance, a close examination of fæces is seldom made, or that, by habit, the attention is directed only to some known sorts of worms; and thus various species of hydatides, and other vesicular insects, have heretofore escaped medical observation. I am inclined to believe that their spontaneous generation in the alimentary

canal is as natural as that of millions of insects in matter exposed to putrid fermentation; with the exception, however, that, in the part which is the seat of the digestive process, it implies contradiction to suppose that worms could be generated, and there any germ or insect, accidentally swallowed, must be destroyed. In the other part, or lower intestines, whatever substances are liable to undergo putrid fermentation, should, of course, be obstructed and retained during a certain length of time, before any germ could pullulate. As soon as the worm or insect is formed, it can creep up into the upper intestines, and even into the stomach, where it resists the destroying power of the digestive fluids, until it is deadened and expelled by other indigestible or poisonous substances.

In the above case, wine effected what medicines usually successful could not produce. I employed it out of a prejudice in favour of certain popular remedies, when we know that they are much depended upon; and this is the case in all the European wine countries, provided it is made purgative by the simple addition of some olive oil. The citric, oxalic, muriatic and gallic acids are likewise very good remedies; but with any of these, and even with mercury, we sometimes fail, because an inveterate case of worms is frequently the cause of hepatitis, enteritis, or other disorders, and symptomatic fevers, which counteract the best remedies, and require the discerning eye of a physician to combine the agency of a treatment well adapted to the complication of the case,

ARTICLE VI.

An ACCOUNT of the MEASLES, as it appeared in Berwick, County of York, District of Maine, during a Part of the Years 1802 and 1803: Communicated by Dr. RICHARD HAZELTINE, of Berwick (Doughty's Falls).

I

SHALL premise to this account a few observations on the weather and seasons, during the same period, and previous to it, as far back as the former may reasonably be presumed to have influenced the disease.

The winter of 1801-2 was remarkably moderate and open. We had no snow that lay on the ground more than a week or ten days at a time, and but few falls of snow at all, till Monday, the 228 February, when we had nearly a foot from the

N. E. accompanied with violent wind. On the preceding Sabbath the ground was almost universally bare of snow, and the day remarkably pleasant. On the following Thursday (Feb. 25th) a violent snow-storm commenced from the N. E. and E. and continued, with little abatement, till March 1st. Then, however, it did not clear away, but remained overcast and squally until the 3d of the month. There fell in Berwick, and in most of the towns on the sea-board, for perhaps a hundred miles, and back into the country twenty or thirty, not less than three and an half or four feet of snow on a level. At Limerick, a town in this county, about thirty miles north of this place, and about the same distance west of Portland, I was informed there were not more than two feet of snow. At Concord (N. H.), on Merrimack River, about 45 miles west of Portsmouth, the storm was so moderate, and the fall of snow so small, that travellers pursued their journies in sleds and sleighs, without interruption. There were several falls of rain during the winter; and there were several days and nights in each month when water did not freeze in the open air. The diseases of the season were chiefly catarrhal affections, and they were very common. The winds were very variable, but mostly from the N. E. The spring of 1802, as far as the middle of May, was remarkably cold, dry and backward. April was believed to be colder than March, and many days and nights in it were thought to be cooler than many in the preceding January. I then had no thermometer by which to determine the truth of these observations. Vegetation was very backward the beginning of May; and on the morning of the 6th ice was discovered in a tub of water out of doors. On the 9th the willows were in full blossom, On the 11th a little rain fell, previous to which it was supposed that no person ever saw it drier for the season in this part of the country. After this period rains were so frequent, that, by the last of the month, the ground was as extremely wet as it had been dry; so that, in many places," people could not plant. About the middle of the month vegetation began

Since the first draught of this memoir, I find, in the New-York edition of Quincy's Lexicon Physico-Medicum, under the word Wind, that this remarkable snow-storm is spoken of as occurring " on the 21st, 22d, and 23d of February, 1802;" but whatever was the state of the weather at the time and places there referred to, certain I am, that at Concord (N. H.), where I then was on a visit to my friends, there were two days of sun-shine between the 22d and 25th of February, and that the violent and long-continued fall of snow commenced on the 25th, as above-mentioned.

t

to be rapid. On the 16th, which was a very fair, pleasant day, the martens for the first time were observed about the small houses which are provided for them; and one fact, particularly, it may not be useless to notice, which is, that they were very inactive and wet; frequently pecking themselves, and arranging their plumage, as if they had just emerged from the mud or bosom of the waters. This fact I do not adduce as an advocate for the opinion that swallows, of which the marten is a species, immerse into the water and mud every autumn; for I am not sufficiently satisfied whether to adopt this opinion, or the one which supposes them to be birds of passage. On the 7th of April we had a shower, with thunder and wind. On the 17th of May a storm of rain from the N. E. commenced, accompanied with thunder and lightning. About the last of May the apple-trees were in full blossom. The wind was very generally from the N. E. during the spring. The diseases of the season were colds and hoarsenesses, which were very frequent among persons of every age. Many discases, in adults as well as children, were accompanied with worms in the alimentary canal: and most of the diseases of the season were attended with a hard pulse, and other marks of phlogistic diathesis. An inflammatory constitution of the air, and of the human body, had prevailed for several years last past, and still continued: blood-letting, of course, had been found highly serviceable in the treatment of diseases. Some time in March we were informed that the measles had appeared in New-York, and was traversing towards the Eastern States. During the summer season the weather did not run into extremes, but we had a favourable proportion of "showers and sunshine"-considerable thunder-good crops of most things except English grain and apples, which were rather scanty and rusty. The winds were chiefly from the S. E. and N. W. The diseases of the season were wormcases, odontalgiæ, and dyspepsiæ; the two first of which were very numerous. The measles appeared first in June, and continued to spread. In the latter part of August were several cases of cholera and vomiting among children. The weather of the autumn of 1802 was generally fair and pleasant, though we had a sufficiency of rain for a plentiful crop of fall feed. Thunder was frequently heard. The winds were chiefly from the N. W. There was no considerable frost till the night of the 28th of September. Indian corn was very ripe by the first week in October. In October the thermometer was highest on the 10th, at 2 P. M. 80 deg. lowest on the 30th,