The history of four-footed beasts and serpents describing at large their true and lively figure, their several names, conditions, kinds, virtues ... countries of their breed, their love and hatred to mankind, and the wonderful work by Edward Topsell ; whereunto is now added, The theater of insects, or, Lesser living creatures ... by T. Muffet ...

CHAP. XXXI.

Of the Description of Worms in the Intestines.

VVEE shewed before that there are three sorts of Worms that are bred in the guts. It will be worth our labour to describe what each of them is. The round Worms are the first difference, and that manifest to all men, because these are the most common, and are so called, because they are indeed round and smooth, not unlike to those worms that breed in dunghils and gardens, which we said before are called by

the Greeks, the bowels of the earth. These as all other Worms are blinde, without any eyes, and they are a hand length or something more: yet Benivennius c. 〈◊〉〈◊〉. affirms that a Smith did vo∣mit up a Worm with grosse flegm, almost a foot and half long, very plain, with a red head that was smooth, and about the bigness of a pease; but the body of it was downy, and the tail crooked like the half-moon. Also at Rome, anno 1543. one that was now upon his youthful years, when as for many daies (as Gabucinns tels the story) he had been in great torments of his belly, at last he voided by stool a great black Worm with black hair, five feet long, as big as a cane. He saw one also that did not exceed the hands length, like to the round Worms, but that the back of it was hairy, and set as it were with red hairs; but this being cast forth by using good reme∣dies, he grew very well. One Antonianus a Canon (as Hieronymus Montuus tels the story) voided a green Worm, but he died shortly after he had voided that. But for the most part they are smooth and not hairy, a hand long and not a foot, at both ends pointed, as it were with a nib. And they differ so far from Earth-worms, that they wear no collar nor girdle: what concerns their co∣lours, I have seen some red, yellow, black, and partly white, or gold colour. Green ones are sel∣dom seen, yet Montuus saw some. Gourd-worms are those quick Worms that are like unto Gourd-seeds; concerning which the question is so great between Gabucinus and Mercurialis; for when he treats of a broad VVorm, that is made of an infinite number of Gourd-seeds shut up in a skin; he saith thus: I, saith he, think a broad Worm to be nothing else but, according to Hippocrates, as it were a white shaving of the guts, that comprehends all the in∣testines, between which some living creatures are bred like unto Gourd-seeds: which may then be seen to be voided when all that shaving is voided, yet oft-times it is voided by parts: which if they break when they are voiding, then you may behold these Worms like to Cucumer-seeds voided by themselves, sometimes many of them being folded together, sometimes but a few. But if any man shall see all that portion, let him know, that that scraping off like a Worm doth not live, but the creatures that are in it, like Cucumer-seeds. I once saw this Worm called a Broad Worm that pants, to have been of a wonderful length, and it crawled, a woman in a Quotidian Feaver voided it by siege, and when I did with▪ admiration much view it, and sought to finde the cause of its motion: that other man, who said he voided a portion of a broad Worm some daies before, which he would shew unto me for a wonder, did shew it me with incredible des▪ I had to see it; for this portion did move it self, whence I was more desirous to know the cause of that. At last searching diligently, I observed through the whole hollow part of it, a rank of living creatures like to Cucumer-seeds, which crept forth of it as out of some bed, some-times one, sometimes two folded together, oft-times four, or more, and that part of the shaving of the guts that was empty of these creatures did not move at all, but sank down: whence it comes to pass that I think a broad Worm is nothing else but snotty matter bred between the guts, or snivelly flegm thickned by the coldness of the guts, covering the inside of the guts like a coat, which women that assist the sick call a bed of Worms. Out of which snotty matter little living creatures like Gourd-seeds proceed, as by way of a conception, which is covered all over by the second membrane in the womb which is first made of the seed. So saith Gabucinus. Avicenna agrees in this opinion, Fen. 16. tract. 5. cap. 2. the Gourd and broad Worms are bred from the clammy matter that is fastned in the superficies of the guts, which is comprehended by a flegma∣tick pannicle covering it as if they were bred from that, and did putrefie within it. Antonius Bene∣vennius a Florentine saith the same, and more clearly, in com. de mirand. morb. causis, c. 87. who writes that in the mineral Baths at Avign••n, that are in the Countrey of the Senones, he saw a wo∣man that for seven daies together drinking the water, did void these Gourd-worms in abun∣dance, that stuck so fast together, one being close to the other, that they were in a rank that was above four cubits long, yet you would judge them to be but one body and one Worm. Johan∣nes a Bookbinder at Basil (whilest I studied Physick there in that Academy, under Zuingerus and Platerus my Masters, anno 1579) voided▪ such a Worm ten ells in length without any pain, and not many years before he had voided the like. It consisted of many Gourd Worms; without which it had had no motion nor feeling, and might deservedly have been rejected from the num∣ber of living creatures. Platerus had such a Worm dried that was eighteen ells long, I saw it. Pliny writes of a Worm a sick person voided, was three hundred foot long: wherefore whatso∣ever Mercurialis objects to the contrary, lib. 3. de morb. puer. cap. 7. since experience proves the thing, is without any firm ground. He saith it cannot be that any living creature can produce so many young ones, as there appear like unto Gourd-seeds; then, that the guts are not large enough to receive so many young ones. Thirdly, that this comes to pass by reason of the vio∣lent putting them forth that gives the form, because the young one being broken by coming forth, is divided into those many pieces like Gourd-seeds. And hence we may conclude that those are trifles that the Arabians speak of Gourd-worms, forasmuch as there are none such: What is that I hear, most learned Jerome? that thou being gray headed, and taught by long expe∣rience, shouldst so applaud thy own imagination, that thou shouldst dare to deny a thing ob∣vious to sense, and plain to our eyes, and to Gabucinus Benevennius, and the Arabians? Go to, No living creature can produce so many young ones like Gourd-seeds: why not I pray? when as one maid that took physick to kill Worms, as Gabucinus affirms, voided 177 round Worms? To say nothing of that Benevenius reporteth c. 85. of the incredible multitude of them: and he was a man to be believed. And what thou speakest of the capaciousness of the place, if that be an argument, it is an errour to be laughed at.

For the guts will contain not only as many as are in a Gourd, but the Gourd it self prepared. By thy last objection thou dost but mock, but canst not weaken the opinion of Avicennas and the Arobians: for as much as in bodies diffected, Gourd-worms have been seen wrapt up in a roll, wherefore they took not their Gourd-form from the violent voiding them at the fundament, or from the manner of putting them forth, as thou either inventest maliciously, or ignorantly be∣lievest. I conclude therefore with Gabucinus, that there are Gourd-worms, and the broad worm called T••nia, is not properly a Worm, nor yet a living creature, but something about the entrails like white shavings, as Hippocrates saith, that is filled with these Gourd-worms put in fashion of a coat of M••il. Ascarides have their name from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, because they bite and tickle very much, and so exercise the patients that are troubled with them: others derive them from 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, which signifies to move. The Ancients called them Beasts-worms, because they were seldom sound in men, but often in Horses, Dogs, Hens, and Oxen. And they were so seldom seen in men, that Hippocrates, and Celsus that followed him, either knew them not, or thought them not worth the mentioning, and so they said nothing of them; and yet they writ at large of other Worms. They are like the round Worms, but ten times shorter, (for they are seldom above an inch long) and what length soever they be, they are thicker at the end of the longanum, and the sphincter of the anus they are found, causing a vehement itching in those parts. Galen writes in Lib. de Ling. Hippocratis, that Gous an old man called Ascarides long Worms; which difficulty Mercurialis easily opens, for we should read it, saith he, not 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, great, but 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, small. More∣over, though in consideration of their breadth and thickness they seem long; yet compared with round Worms, they may be called short. These and round Worms are of divers colours, as the matter they are bred of is, or in respect of the heat that concocts them; but Gourd-worms are alwaies the same: whence I should conclude that Gourd-worms breed only from flegm, but the rest from all humours and excrements. Ascarides oft-times come forth in great numbers, and before they be voided they prick much.