PARASITIC AMOEBAE 

 OF MAN. 



i. 



HISTORICAL. 



THE history of the development of our knowledge 

 of the parasitic amoebae of man is of interest as 

 showing the length of time required in the study of 

 this class of parasites before very definite results 

 were obtained, and even to-day our knowledge is 

 far from complete in regard to some of the species 

 described and their relation to disease. 



Probably the first investigator to observe 

 amoebae in the feces of man was Lambl, of Prague, 

 who in 1860 described organisms occurring in the 

 feces of a child which he interpreted as amoebae, but 

 he attached no great importance to their presence, 

 although the child was suffering from severe diar- 

 rhoea at the time. However, a careful perusal of 

 this paper shows that he had his suspicions that 

 the organisms were the cause of the diarrhoea, so 

 that to him belongs the credit of not only first 

 describing the morphology of these parasites, but 



