HISTORICAL. 3 



reducing ulceration of the intestine in a dog which 

 he injected with feces containing these organisms, so 

 that to this author belongs the credit of first ex- 

 perimentally producing dysentery in the lower 

 animals by the injection of material containing a 

 parasitic amoeba of man. His researches were fol- 

 lowed by further work by Cunningham and by Koch. 

 The former author found amoebae in the feces of both 

 healthy and diseased individuals and described 

 bodies which he considered to be spores, but he did 

 not attach any pathological importance to the 

 amoebae. Koch autopsied five cases of dysentery in 

 Egypt, two of them complicated by abscess of the 

 liver. In the ulcers occurring in the intestine he 

 found numerous amoebae and in sections they were 

 found at the base of the ulcerations. The parasites 

 were also found in the capillaries of the liver, close 

 to the abscess walls. Koch considered that on 

 account of their location they bore some etiological 

 relation to the disease. 



Grassi, in 1879, confirmed the presence of amoebae 

 in human dejecta, but considered them harmless 

 commensals as he found them in both health and 

 disease. His paper was followed by those of Son- 

 sino, Normand, Perroncito, Callandrucio, and 

 Blanchard, all confirming the presence of amoebae 

 in the stools of patients suffering from diarrhoea 

 or dysentery. 



