OF THE ALIMENTARY TRACT 77 



histolytica, where the amoeba is mainly or solely, 

 as a common thing, a lumen dweller, occasionally be- 

 coming seated at the bottoms of gland crypts, where 

 it may produce necrosis and enter the tissues, possibly 

 destroying surface epithelium, as James observes, 

 without penetrating below that. Certainly for the 

 most part it must live and multiply in the lumen of 

 the bowel if its numbers and prevalence are what they 

 appear to be. 



As a lumen dweller does it disturb the host? That 

 remains to be answered. 



The whole question of the state of the host in 

 chronic intestinal amoebiasis and in the symptom- 

 less carrier of Endamoeha histolytica has yet to be 

 settled; whether the vague disturbances of intestinal 

 tract and of general health now attributed to this 

 low grade infection are related to it. James believes 

 that this state is exceedingly common, that it is of 

 more importance to the human race than any other 

 protozoal disease, even than malaria, that intestinal 

 amoebiasis presents a disease state as protean in its 

 manifestations as syphilis itself. 



We have come, then, from the recent start of 

 knowing amoebic dysentery as the disease produced 

 by Endamoeha histolytica, to the point where this 

 is recognized as the uncommon acute or relatively 

 acute phase of the disease, w^hile there exists in the 

 population at large an incidence of latent infection 

 conservatively estimated at from 5 to 10%, in many, 

 if not all, of which it is the belief of careful and com- 



