Report of the case of a patient from whose subcutaneous tissue three larvae of a species of dermatobia were removed : with remarks / by Rudolph Matas.

  • Rudolph Matas
Date:
[between 1880 and 1889?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the case of a patient from whose subcutaneous tissue three larvae of a species of dermatobia were removed : with remarks / by Rudolph Matas. 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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    finger, a lighted cigar is approached to the skin as near as the patient will permit, when the worm becomes restless, and the point of his body will be seen as a very minute orifice in the skin, not before obvious. The cigar is im- mediately dropped, and with both hands the tumor is com- pressed violently; the worm is thus forced out, sometimes with such velocity as to be projected several inches. No inflammation or discharge follows, but the sac immediately closes and heals. “ Sometimes the worm is so small as to resist this mode of extraction. A piece of tobacco leaf is then gummed over the tumor (usually with an exudation from the skin of a plantain); the worm dies in a few hours and is then readily removed by squeezing the part. I have nothing to add to the description of the larvas in the text, as amended by me, except to say that my specimens were regularly clavate, not at all depressed. The form mentioned above was perhaps owing to contraction produced by the liquor in which the specimen was preserved. The figures given by Mr. Goudot are regularly oval and not at all clavate. The name gusano del monte is commonly applied to the worms by the natives, while the insect is called zanctida gusano; the word zancudo means simply long legged, and it is difficult to understand how it could be applied to a species of cuterebra. The natives, assured me that the fly was frequently seen; that it was of a grey color and re- sembled an ordinary mosquito, except in being larger. I imagine that some species of tifula was meant. A similar superstition in the United States has conferred upon these harmless insects the fearful title oi gallinippers.”—Lee.
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