480 The Philippine Journal of Science 1921 
theoretical grounds, it would seem appropriate to outline the 
campaign against the’ parasites much as is done in malaria, and 
deliver the drug to the bowel lumen at about the time that 
schizogony is taking place, for the merozoites would appear to 
be the most vulnerable forms in the life cycle. 
The difficulty here lieg in the determination of the time at 
which schizogony takes place through some physical sign exhib- 
ited by the patient. It would also be useful to know if schizo- 
gony in these coccidia is synchronous and rhythmic as it is in 
Plasmodium. It is reasonable to expect that such is the case, 
for the mature spores ingested by the host are all fixed at one 
stage in the life cycle, and those entering the small intestine 
might be expected to open rather promptly so that the sporozoites 
would begin their development in the epithelial cells at approx- 
imately the same time. 
During the progress of my case I tried, so far as possible, to 
discover some sign that would tend to fix the time at which schi- 
zogony was taking place, but I failed. In questioning the 
patient about the character of the stools he passed each day I 
was told by him that he had noted some periodicity in the diar- 
rhea. That is to say, on one day the stool would be normal, on 
the next day it would be soft or watery, the following day normal, 
and so on. In other words he was inclined to believe that the 
periodicity was tertian. As I had asked rather leading ques- 
tions, I tried not to place too much stress on the periodicity, 
especially as it seemed to lead very little nearer to what I was 
seeking. However, I note that Noc,(12) in speaking of diar- 
rhea in his patient, says (p. 786): 
La diarrhée actuelle a débuté vers la fin d’aofit, 3 ou 4 selles par jour, 
liquides fétides, noiratres, survenant surtout le matin. Courtes rémis- 
sions de 24 heures.* 
This is offered merely as a suggestion for later work and not 
because I believe that it is particularly definite. It may be that 
the simultaneous penetration of a large number of merozoites 
into epithelial cells at approximately the same time causes suf- 
ficient irritation of the intestine to set up a diarrhea. That 
being the case, it would only remain to determine the time, 
making suitable allowance for the appearance of the diarrhea 
and then administer a drug (yet to be determined) at a time 
when it would find the merozoites seeking new host cells. This 
® The italics are mine.—F. G. H. 
