Note 30 — Chapter VIII · BRUCE AND THE NILE: SONNINI, BROWNE, AND BONAPARTE

Though it is so stated, the delay was apparently caused by the complete breakdown of Bruce’s health, a breakdown which obliged him to spend some time at Italian sulphur baths (Poretta). Bruce, before leaving Sennar and the regions of the Blue Nile, had received into his system the germ of the Guinea worm. This creature developed in the usual way. One day when Bruce was reading on a sofa at Cairo he felt an itching on his leg, and soon afterwards through the pimple thus raised appeared the head of the worm. Three inches of this parasite were wound off round a piece of silk, but on the ship which conveyed Bruce from Alexandria to Marseilles the surgeon clumsily broke off the portion of the worm extruding from the body. The remainder of the worm still in the leg caused the most terrible agony for thirty-five days, which Bruce had to spend in the lazaretto at Marseilles. Here, however, he received better surgical treatment. Nevertheless, for some time afterwards his leg gave him considerable trouble, and apparently, in 1774, he had to visit Italian sulphur baths.