pected to be overcome.

SECT. IV.--WORMS.

NOT SO FREQUENT AS POPULARLY SUPPOSED; AN ERROR PRODUCTIVE OF
MISCHIEF.--Almost all diseases have been, at one time or other,
attributed to the generation of worms in the intestines. And at the
present day it is not at all an uncommon occurrence for medical men to
be called in to prescribe for children, to whom the strongest purgative
quack medicines have been previously exhibited by parents, for the
removal of symptoms which, upon investigation, are found in no way
connected with or produced by worms. The results of such errors are
always, more or less, mischievous, and sometimes of so serious a nature
as to lay the foundation of disease which ultimately proves fatal. This
observation, moreover, it behoves a mother carefully to regard, since
the symptoms, popularly supposed to indicate the existence of worms,
are so deceptive, (and none more so than that which is usually so much
depended upon--the picking of the nose,) that it may be positively
asserted to be impossible for an unprofessional person to form a
correct and sound opinion in any of these cases.

It was at one time imagined, and the idea is still popularly current,
that worms were the occasion of a troublesome and lingering species of
fever, which was therefore designated worm-fever. This notion is now
entirely exploded; for if worms be present under such circumstances, it
is a mere accidental complication; the fever referred to being
generally of a remitting character, and neither caused by or causing
the generation of worms. The symptoms of this fever, however, have led
and continue to lead very many astray. This is not surprising, since
they so closely resemble those which characterise the presence of
worms, that an unprofessional person is almost sure to be misled by
them. Amongst other symptoms, there is the picking of the nose and
lips, offensive breath, occasional vomiting, deranged bowels, pain in
the head and belly, with a tumid and swollen condition of the latter, a
short dry cough, wasting of the flesh, etc.; symptoms continually
attendant upon the disorder now under consideration. These cases have
hitherto been perpetually looked upon by mothers as worm-cases, and
after having been treated by them as such, by the use of the popular
worm-powders of the day, have, as perpetually, presented themselves to
the physician greatly and grievously aggravated by such injudicious
treatment. It is folly, a