The workes of that famous chirurgion Ambrose Parey translated out of Latine and compared with the French. by Th: Johnson

CHAP. IIII. Of the wormes which use to breed in the guts.

A Grosse, viscide and crude humour is the materiall cause of wormes, which * 1.1 having got the beginning of corruption in the stomacke, is quickly carri∣ed into the guts,, and there it putrefies, having not acquired the forme of laudible Chylus in the first concoction. This, for that it is viscide, tenaci∣ously adheres to the guts, neither is it easily evacuated with the other excrements; therfore by delay it further putrefies, & by the efficacy of heat, it turns into the mat∣ter and nourishment for wormes. This alimentary humour being consumed, unlesse some fresh supply the want thereof, which may ease their hunger, they move them∣selves * 1.2 in the guts with great violence, they cause grievous and great paines, yea, and oft-times they creep up to the stomack, and so come forth by the mouth, and some∣times they ascend into the holes of the palate, and come forth at the nose. Wormes are of three sorts; for some are round & long, others broad and long, others short & slender. The first are called by the Ancients, Teretes, that is, round; for that they are * 1.3 long and round. The second are named Teniae, for that their bodies are long & broad like a rowler or swathe. The third are termed Ascarides, for that they commonly wrap themselves up round. Other differences of wormes are taken from their colours, as red, white, black, ash-coloured, yellowish. Some also are hairy, with a great head like the little fish which the French call Chabot, we, a Millers-thumbe; in some diseases many wormes are generated and cast forth by fundament, as small as haires, and usually of colour white, and these are they which are called Ascarides. The diversity of colours in wormes proceedeth not from the like distinct diversity of humours whereof they are generated. For the melancholicke and cholericke humour by their qualities are wholly unfit to generate wormes. But this manifold variety in colour, is by reason of the different corruption of the chylous or phlegmaticke humour whereof they are bred. The long and broad wormes are oftentimes stretched a∣longst all the guts, being like to a mucous or albuminous substance, and verily I * 1.4 saw one voided by a woman, which was like to a serpent, and some sixe foote long; which ought not to seeme strange, seeing it is noted by the Ancients, that they have s•…•… wormes so long, as the length of the whole guts, that is, seven times the

length of ones body. Wicrus writes that he saw a country man who voided a worme eight foot and one inch long, in head and mouth resembling a Ducke, which there∣fore * 1.5 I have thought good here to expresse.

[illustration]

The figure of a worme, generated in, and cast forth of the Guts.

Valeriola affirmeth that he saw a worme above nine foote long. Now as wormes differ in shape, so are their places of generation also different. For the round and * 1.6 long wormes are commonly generated in the smaller guts, the rest in the greater, but especially the Ascarides: none breede in the stomacke, as that which is the place of the first concoction. There truely the matter which breedeth these wormes, gets the * 1.7 first rudiment of corruption, but comes to perfection onely in the guts; they breed in some infants in their mothers bellies, by the pravity and corrupt nature of the hu∣mour flowing from the mother for the nourishment of the childe, which for that then they doe not expell it by siege, it by delay putrefieth the more, and yeeldes fit matter for the breeding of wormes, as some have observed out of Hippocrates. Lastly, wormes breed in people of any age that are Belly-Gods and given to glutto∣ny, * 1.8 as also in such as feed upon meats of ill juice, and apt to corrupt, as crude summer fruits, cheese, and milke-meates. But to know in what part of the Guts the wormes doe lurk, you must note, that when they are in the small guts, the patients complain * 1.9 of a paine in their stomacke, with a dogge-like appetite, whereby they require many and severall things without reason, a great part of the nourishment being consumed by the wormes lying there; they are also subject to often fainting, by reason of the sympathy which the stomacke, being a part of most exquisite sense, hath with the heart, the nose itches, the breath stinkes, by reason of the exhalations sent up from the meat corrupting in the stomacke; through which occasion they are also given to sleep, but are now and then waked therefrom by suddaine startings and feares; they are held with a continued and slow feaver, a dry cough, a winking with their eielids, and often changing of the colour of their faces. But long and broad wormes, being the innates of the greater guts, shew themselves by stooles replenished with many * 1.10 sloughes, here and there resembling the seedes of a Musk-melon or cucumber. Asca∣rides are knowne by the itching they cause in the fundament, causing a sense as if it were Ants running up and downe; causing also a tenesmus, and falling downe of the fundament. This is the cause of all these symptomes; their sleepe is turbulent and often clamorous, when as hot, acride and subtle vapors, raised by the wormes from the like humor and their foode, are sent up to the head; but sound sleep by the con∣trary, as when a misty vapour is sent up from a grosse and cold matter. They dream they eate in their sleepe, for that while the wormes doe more greedily consume the chylous matter in the guts, they stirre up the sense of the like action in the phantasie. They grate or gnash their teeth by reason of a certaine convulsisick repletion, the muscles of the temples and jawes being distended by plenty of vapours. A dry cough comes by the consent of the vitall parts serving for respiration, which the naturall, to wit, the Diaphragma or midriffe, smit upon by acride vapoures, and irritated as though there were some humour to bee expelled by coughing. These same acride

fumes assailing the orifice of the ventricle, cause either a hicketting, or else a fainting, according to the condition of their consistence, grosse or thin; these carryed up to the parts of the face cause an itching of the nose, a darkenesse of the fight, and a sud∣daine changing of the colour in the cheeks. Great wormes are worse than little ones, red than white, living than dead, many than few, variegated than those of one col∣lour, * 1.11 as those which are signes of a greater corruption. Such as are cast forth bloo∣dy and sprinkled with blood, are deadly, for they shew that the substance of the guts is eaten asunder; for oft-times they corrode and perforate the body of the gut wherein they are conteined, and thence penetrare into divers parts of the belly, so that they have come forth sometimes at the Navell, having eaten themselves a pas∣sage forth, as Hollerius affirmeth. When as children troubled with the wormes draw their breath with difficulty, and wake moist over all their bodies, it is a signe that death is at hand. If at the beginning of sharpe feavers, round wormes come forth a∣live, it is a signe of a pestilent feaver, the malignity of whose matter they could not endure, but were forced to come forth. But if they be cast forth dead, they are signes of greater corruption in the humours, and of a more venenate malignity.

Notes

• * 1.1

  How worms are generated.
• * 1.2

  The reason that they sometimes come forth at the mouth.
• * 1.3

  The differences of worms.
• * 1.4

  A history.
• * 1.5

  A history.
• * 1.6

  In observat.
• * 1.7

  In what places of the belly wormes are ge∣nerated.
• * 1.8

  Ad finem lib. 4. de morbis.
• * 1.9

  Signes of wormes in the small guts.
• * 1.10

  Signes of wormes in the great guts. Signes of Asca∣rides.
• * 1.11

  Why wormes of divers co∣loures are more dangerous.