46 



power of progression, in much the same way as the leucocytes 

 wander in and out. There is the possibility that in the process of 

 tissue destruction the vessel walls are so changed as to make this 

 process more practicable, or that, following capillary hemorrhages 

 and before coagulation has occurred, the organisms may enter the 

 vessels and make their way along. Certain it is that they do not 

 necessarily cause thrombosis by their presence, although this ap- 

 pearance is by no means uncommon in tissues, and especially iu 

 the vessels of the interglandular tissues. So far as the blood cells 

 are concerned, the amoebae are able to ingest and destroy apparently 

 healthy erythrocytes and leucocytes. 



Relation of ama'bcp to the cells. — It was shown by Councilman 

 and Lafleur, and forcibly insisted upon by Howard, that leucocytic 

 infiltration is not a feature of amoebiasis. On the contrary, it is 

 stated that the process is more in the nature of a subacute or chronic 

 inflammation, in that the cells predominating in the infiltration are 

 formative ones and lymphocytes. In addition to these last-men- 

 tioned cells there is often a considerable number of eosinophiles, 

 though this is not the rule. However, if the condition is a chronic 

 inflammatory one, then this is the type of infiltration we should 

 expect, for Ij^mphocytes and eosinophiles are the cells which, par 

 excellence, occur in such pathologic states (Muir. Brit. Med. Jour., 

 WOJf, ii, 585). 



In one series of sections we saw considerable numbers of mast 

 cells, which occurred chiefly in the glandular layer of the bowel. 

 Upon what conditions the presence of these depend we can not say, 

 except to note that in the bowel from which the sections were made 

 there w^as considerable diphtheritis. 



Plasma cells are not uncommonly seen in. the submucosa, as Coun- 

 cilman and Lafleur state. If these are of IjTnphoid origin, we 

 should expect them to be frequently met with in subacute or chronic 

 inflammation in which there is a- proliferation of, and invasion with, 

 lymphoid cells. 



Relation of ama'hce to bacteria. — From our experience it can not 

 be said that the presence of bacteria limit the field of activity of 

 the amoebse. As a matter of fact, the organisms seem to be about 

 as numerous in cases complicated by bacterial superinfections as in 

 uncomplicated ones, unless it be in those in which pyogenic cocci 

 are present. In one case so complicated there were certainly fewer 



