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For roundworms he recommended especially a decoction of artemisia maritima, coriander seeds, and decoctions of thyme. Our return to thymol for intestinal parasites is interesting. For the oxyuris he prescribed clysters of ethereal oils. We have not advanced much in our treatment of intestinal worms in the fifteen hundred years since Alexander's time.
One of the most surprising chapters of Alexander's knowledge of pathology and therapeutics is to be found in his treatment of the subject of intestinal worms, which is contained in a letter sent by him to his friend, Theodore, whose child was suffering from them. He describes the oxyuris vermicularis with knowledge manifestly derived from personal observation.
He dwells on the itching in the region of the anus, caused by the oxyuris, and the fact that they probably find their way into the upper part of the digestive tract because of the soiling of the hands. He knew that the tapeworms often reached great length, he has seen one over sixteen feet long, and also that they had a life cycle, so that they existed in two different forms.
These spots, when examined by the microscope, were found to contain some of the eggs of the tricocephalus. Some of the flies themselves were then caught, and their intestines presented large numbers of the ova. Similar experiments with the ova of the Oxyuris vermicularis and of the Toenia solium afforded corresponding results.
But to return to those preventive measures, and having done what we can with the air, we will turn our attention to the drinking water, for in addition to malarial microbes the drinking and washing water of West Africa is liable to contain dermazoic and entozoic organisms, and if you don't take care you will get from it into your anatomy Tinea versicolor, Tinea decalvans, Tinea circinata, Tinea sycosis, Tinea favosa, or some other member of that wretched family, let alone being nearly certain to import Trichocephalus dispar, Ascaris lumbricoides, Oxyuris vermicularis, and eight varieties of nematodes, each of them with an awful name of its own, and unpleasant consequences to you, and, lastly, a peculiar abomination, a Filaria.
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