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.
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