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 naturæ 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 scarabæi 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 stings or prickles.[161] [156] _De hist. medic. mirab. Lib. i. Cap. v._ [157] _Observ. medic. Lib. ii. Cap. 1._ [158] _Decur. 2. ann. 5. append. Artic. 38._ [159] _Ibid. Artic. 52._ [160] _Ibid. Artic. 109._ [161] _Poterii opera cum annot. Frid. Hoffmanni edita, Francof. 1698. pag. 72._ Now these histories, wonderful as they seem, are not to be refused credit. For all nature is animated in a surprizing degree. The air which we breathe, the food which we eat; all fluids especially, are full of animalcula of very different kinds. Whence it is possible, that some of these, being received into our bodies, and conveyed into the minute passages of the softest parts, as into nests, may there grow, as worms do in the intestines, to their proper size. Hence by the obstruction of the smallest vessels, tumors arise; which being suppurated by heat, and bursting, pour forth their foul offspring in the shape of worms.