corruption.[153] And Philoxenus in Aetius says, that _in the humor of
Atheroma's, he sometimes found animals, like gnats or little
flies_.[154] In fine, Paulus Aegineta teaches the method of getting
rid of them.[155]
[148] _Ubi supra._
[149] _Josephus Ant. Jud. Lib. xvii. Cap. vi. (an. viii?) Sec.
5. & De Bello Jud. Lib. i. Cap. xxxiii. Sec. 5._
[150] _Hist. Lib. 4. a fine_ [Greek: Zosa euleon exezese].
[151] _Sext. Aurel. Victor. Epitom. & Pompon. Laeti Rom.
Hist. compend._
[152] _De compos. Medic. per genera, L. iv. Cap. x._
[153] _Lib. de tumorib. praeter nat. Cap. iv._
[154] _Lib. xv. Cap. vii._
[155] _Lib. iv. Cap. xlii._
In so clear a case, it is needless to collect a greater number of
authorities from the ancients, especially since several modern
physicians have made the same observations. For Marcellus Donatus
mentions a person of high rank, extremely fat, whose belly was eroded
and mortified by little worms engendered in his skin, which was
excessively distended by fat and humors; and these worms were not
unlike those produced in old rotten cheese.[156] The learned Nicolaus
Tulpius saw worms very like these, issuing with the urine out of the
body of a very celebrated physician.[157] And the Ephemerides naturae
curiosorum, contain three remarkable cases of this kind. The first is
that of a certain Frenchman, whose blood was so corrupted, that very
minute animals came forth day and night with horrid tortures, thro'
most of the outlets of the skin, as the eyes, nose, mouth, and
bladder; and at length put an end to his miserable life.[158] In the
second, black worms, not unlike scarabaei or beetles, came out of an
abscess formed in the calf of the leg of a girl.[159] And in the third
it is said, that very small white worms issued with the milk from the
breasts of a woman in childbed.[160] Nor can I omit two similar
cases, one of which is related by Poterius, the other by his
commentator Frideric Hoffman. The former attended a countryman, for a
tumor on his right knee, out of which, when opened, little live worms
issued, which caused an intolerable pain in the part by their bitings.
And the latter saw a tradesman, who had a hard tumor about the veins
of the arms, which was very troublesome to him. This was opened by a
surgeon several times without any benefit; until an ulcer was formed,
out of which he took a great number of little black worms, armed with
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