Some account of two cases of inflammatory tumour, produced by the deposit of the larva of a large fly (OEstrus humanus) beneath the cutis, in the human subject : accompanied with drawings of the larva / by John Howship.

  • Howship, John, 1781-1841.
Date:
[1833]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some account of two cases of inflammatory tumour, produced by the deposit of the larva of a large fly (OEstrus humanus) beneath the cutis, in the human subject : accompanied with drawings of the larva / by John Howship. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Compression ejected a maggot, or larva, about this size and form. Horizontal, dirty brownish stripes were on both surfaces, (I believe I am right,) which were alike somewhat convex. Between the stripes the colour was of a dirty white. Unfortunately it was not preserved, nor indeed accurately examined. I think the man was aware he had, as he said, a worm in his boil. The outpost (Prince William Frederick) was on a sandbank, closely hemmed in by the bush, (wood.) The water for drinking was procured by sinking two rum pun- cheons into the sand, close to the sea, without^ bottom or head. “The barracks were occasionally visited by the Vesper- tilio Cynocephalus, which sometimes bled us. One night, for example, I went to sleep without my’mosquito-net: I awoke, and, placing my hand on my arm, found a small quantity of blood, which had flowed from a circular bite in the skin, effected by one of these gentlemen. It healed readily. Of course, in such a country, and such a position, we ate, drank, and respired animalcule in abundance. The back water, in the woods, swarmed with fish; in the river, we had the Manatus. The wind blowing|on us from the sea, it was healthy in the extreme. No ailment visited us, save an occasional dysenteric attack.” The following are the notes I took regarding the second case. August 29th, 1832. Mr. G. Treherne brought me the larva of an insect, which he took from beneath the cutis of a patient, while on duty at Santa Anna, in the district of JVIaraquita, Colombia. A young man, a carpenter, requested him to look at his scrotum, upon the anterior inferior part of which was an inflamed swelling, more than an inch in diameter, with two small ulcerated openings, discharging a thin purulent matter, little painful, but rather itching: he sometimes, however, complained of a smarting pain. It was intended, if the two little openings did not heal, to lay them into one. In a day or two he saw him again, (the swelling having existed several months,) and then observed something white occupying the largest of the openings. Mr. Treherne, gently pressing the tumour, perceived a whitish substance advance and recede. He at length suspected it must be an insect, and, continuing to press it, the larva was further pro- truded, as the opening relaxed; and, with the effusion of a