This Is Not, What Its Euphonious Name May Lead You To
Suppose, A Fern, But It Is A Worm Which Gets Into The White Of The
Eye And Leads There A Lively Existence, Causing Distressing Itching,
Throbbing And Pricking Sensations, Not Affecting The Sight Until It
Happens To Set Up Inflammation.
I have seen the eyes of natives
simply swarming with these Filariae.
A curious thing about the
disease is that it usually commences in one eye, and when that
becomes over-populated an emigration society sets out for the other
eye, travelling thither under the skin of the bridge of the nose,
looking while in transit like the bridge of a pair of spectacles. A
similar, but not identical, worm is fairly common on the Ogowe, and
is liable to get under the epidermis of any part of the body. Like
the one affecting the eye it is very active in its movements,
passing rapidly about under the skin and producing terrible pricking
and itching, but very trifling inflammation in those cases which I
have seen. The treatment consists of getting the thing out, and the
thing to be careful of is to get it out whole, for if any part of it
is left in, suppuration sets in, so even if you are personally
convinced you have got it out successfully it is just as well to
wash out the wound with carbolic or Condy's fluid. The most
frequent sufferers from these Filariae are the natives, but white
people do get them.
Do not confuse this Filaria with the Guinea worm, Filaria
medinensis, which runs up to ten and twelve feet in length, and
whose habits are different. It is more sedentary, but it is in the
drinking water inside small crustacea (cyclops). It appears
commonly in its human host's leg, and rapidly grows, curled round
and round like a watch-spring, showing raised under the skin. The
native treatment of this pest is very cautiously to open the skin
over the head of the worm and secure it between a little cleft bit
of bamboo and then gradually wind the rest of the affair out. Only
a small portion can be wound out at a time, as the wound is very
liable to inflame, and should the worm break, it is certain to
inflame badly, and a terrible wound will result. You cannot wind it
out by the tail because you are then, so to speak, turning its fur
the wrong way, and it catches in the wound.
I should, I may remark, strongly advise any one who likes to start
early on a canoe journey to see that no native member of the party
has a Filaria medinensis on hand; for winding it up is always
reserved for a morning job and as many other jobs are similarly
reserved it makes for delay.
I know, my friends, that you one and all say that the drinking water
at your particular place is of singular beauty and purity, and that
you always tell the boys to filter it; but I am convinced that that
water is no more to be trusted than the boys, and I am lost in
amazement at people of your intelligence trusting the trio of water,
boys, and filter, in the way you do.
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