THE ACTION OF VARIOUS CHEMICAL SUBSTANCES UPON 

 CULTURES OF AMOEBAE, 



By J. B. Thomas, M. D., Attcudiny Physician Civil Sanitarium, Benguet. 



Ill considering tlie subject of the local treatment of anucbic 

 dysentery one encounters a long list of drugs recommended by indi- 

 vidual cxperimentors and clinicians, but the one proposed in 

 some form or other by the large majority of the medical profession 

 is quinine. It is employed in solutions varying in strength from 

 1-5,000 to 1-3,000, from one-half to 1 liter, two or three times 

 a day, as recommended by Councilman and Lafleur in their classical 

 monograph published in 1891, all the way up to the excessive con- 

 centration of 1-100 advised by J. H. Ford in a recent number of 

 the Journal of Tropical Medicine. Osier recommends a warm solu- 

 tion of quinine 1-5,000, 1-2,000, 1-1,000, and states that it has 

 been used with great benefit in the wards of the Johns Hopkins 

 Hospital. 



Coimcilman and Lafleur summarize their experience with quinine 

 enemas as follows : 



Quinine injections do destroy amcebse in the bowel, but it is question- 

 able if they reach the amoebae in the tissues. Such treatment is serv- 

 iceable in early cases and those where the rectum, sigmoid flexure, and 

 descending colon are the limit of the disease. 



Among the drugs less commonly advised for the local treatment 

 of amcebic dysentery we find the following: Bichloride of mercury 

 1-5,000 to 1-3,000 ; nitrate of silver 1-500 ; dilute nitric acid (by 

 H. A. liafleur in Allbutt's System of Medicine). 



Cold water enemas (by Tuttle). 



Potassium permanganate 1-1,000 to 1-2,000; eucalyptol 1-1,000; 

 sodium bicarbonate 1-100 (by J. H. Ford) . 



Tannin 1-200; ichthyol 1-250, in combination with salts of bis- 

 muth (by Hemmeter). 



However, it will probably be admitted by those who treat large 



numbers of amoebic dysentery cases that the ideal substance for local 



treatment has not yet been discovered. Weak solutions of quinine 



fail to destroy the auKeba', which fre(|untly persist in the intestine 



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