Wilson, Robert Thomas: The British expedition to Egypt: carefully abridged in two parts (London, 1803)

many both. Most of the children have sore
*
eyes, but this, in a great measure, arises from
a want of cleanliness, in the mother’s neglect to
wash the filth from these tender organs, and to
these, several other diseases as common here as
in other countries might be added.
Of one of the noxious insects with which
that country abounds, a French writer has lately
published a curious report in substance as
follows :
<f The worms which are the subject of this
observation, live in pools of muddy water, in
the middle of those deserts which separate Egypt
from Syria, and of those on the confines of
Lybia. They have the form of a horses hair,
and some lines only in length ; but, filled with
blood, they become the size of an ordinary
leech. When the French army entered this
country, the soldiers, pressed by thirst, drank
greedily of this water; many of them felt im-
mediately stings or pricking pains in the poste-
rior fauces, followed by frequent cough, and
spittle lightly tinged with blood, a disposi-
tion to vomit, a difficulty of swallowing, la-
borious respiration, and sharp pains in the
chest. The first person attacked thus, beside
these symptoms, had lost much blood. On
coming into the hospital, Citizen Larrey, on
pressing down the tongue with a spoon, per-
ceived the leech, which was of the size of the
small finger ; he introduced a small forceps to
lay hold of it; but on the first touch it con-
tracted and placed itself behind the velum pen-
dulum palali: as soon as it had resumed its for-