294 FAMILY: MONADID^ 



diseased tissues, can be cultivated from chicken fseces on egg medium, 

 and the cultures fed to young chickens produce the same condition as that 

 resulting from ingestion of liver material. It has not, however, been 

 possible to obtain cultures directly from the tissues. From these 

 observations it would appear that the organism named H. meleagris is 

 actually a flagellate which has one to four fiagella, the axonemes of which 

 arise from a blepharoj^last or group of blepharoplasts; that it lives in the 

 intestine as a flagellate and is able to invade the tissues. There is no trace 

 of axostyle, undulating membrane, or basal fibre, so that its relation to 

 Trichomonas cannot be upheld. It seems possible that, as the majority 

 of the flagellate forms have but one flagellum, this is the normal condition, 

 and that the rarer forms with more than one flagellum are the result of 

 precocious division of the blepharoplast. In many respects the organism 

 resembles a member of the genus Oikomonas. 



Genus: Craigia Calkins, 1913. 



Calkins (1913) founded the genus Craigia for an organism said to be 

 parasitic in the human intestine, and which was first described by Craig 

 (1906) from the Philippines as Paramoeba hominis. Barlow (1915) stated 

 that he had discovered a similar but smaller organism in Honduras and 

 named it Craigia migrans. He claimed to have seen over 150 cases of 

 infection, and attributed to the presence of the organism the numerous 

 symptoms, including fever, dysentery, and even abscess of the liver, from 

 which his cases suffered. Such assertions it is manifestly impossible to 

 accept. C. hominis, described by Craig, is said to live in the intestine of 

 man, and to have both an amoeboid and a flagellate stage. The amoeboid 

 form is described as resembling E. coU, and measuring in diameter 10 to 25 

 microns. It was said to form uninucleated cysts, from which, after further 

 development, numbers of flagellates escape. The latter grow and attain 

 a diameter of 10 to 20 microns. Each flagellate is depicted as consisting 

 of a rounded body and a long tapering process, which, though described 

 as a flagellum, certainly does not appear like one in the figures accompany- 

 ing Craig's descrij)tion. After many futile attempts to discover such an 

 organism, the writer was very kindly given some preparations by its 

 discoverer. In these, which, unfortunately, were poorly stained, the 

 writer could find only typical free forms of E. coli and Chilomastix mesnili, 

 a flagellate which was hitherto unrecorded from the Philippines, where the 

 films were made. The three anterior flagella which this latter organism 

 possesses were very difficult to detect on account of the imperfect staining. 

 The posterior extremity of the organism, however, was drawn out in 

 many cases into a tapering process which resembled the structures which 

 were called flagella by the original discoverer of C. hominis. Both 



