46 THE ANIMAL PARASITES OF MAN 



penetrated into the bladder and vagina. Doflein places the organism 

 in the genus Entamceba, and it is perhaps identical with E. histolytica. 



Similar cases are also reported (1892-3) by other authors : Jiirgens, Kartulis, Posner r 

 and Wijnhoff. Jiirgens found small mucous cysts, filled with amoeboid bodies, in the 

 bladder of an old woman suffering from chronic cystitis ; they were also found 

 in the vagina. The amoeba observed by Kartulis in the sanguineous urine of 

 a woman, aged 58, suffering from a tumour of the bladder, measured 12 /* to 20/1, 

 and exhibited slow movements by protruding short pseudopodia. The vacuoles and 

 nucleus became visible only after staining with methylene blue. 



Posner's case related to a man, aged 37, who had hitherto been quite healthy and 

 had never been out of Berlin. Suddenly, after a rigor, he passed urine tinged with 

 blood. This contained, besides red and white blood corpuscles and hyaline and 

 granular casts, large granular bodies (about 50/1 in length and 28 /i in breath), which 

 slowly altered their shape, and contained red blood corpuscles in addition to other 

 foreign matter. These bodies exhibited one or several nuclei and some vacuoles. 

 From the course of the disease, which extended over a year, and during which 

 similar attacks recurred, Posner came to the conclusion that the amoebae which had 

 originally invaded the bladder had penetrated into the pelvis of the kidney, where 

 they probably had settled in a cyst, and thence induced the repeated attacks. 



Wijnhoff observed four cases of amoeburia in Utrecht. 



Amceba miurai, Ijima, 1898. 



Under this term the author describes protoplasmic bodies which Miura, in 

 Tokyo, found in the serous fluid of a woman, aged 26, who had died from pleuritis 

 and peritonitis endotheliomatosa. Two days before death these same forms had 



also appeared in the haemorrhagic faeces of the 

 patient. The bodies were usually spherical or 

 ellipsoidal, and at one pole carried a small pro- 

 tuberance (fig. 12) beset with filamentous short 

 "pseudopodia" (really a pseudopodium covered 

 with cilia). Their size varied between 15 p. and 

 38 /i. The cytoplasm was finely granular, and 



. iz.-Amvba miurai, Ij. n difference wa * observable in the ecto- 

 x 500. <z, fresh ; b, after treat- and endo-plasm, only the villous appendage 

 ment with dilute acetic acid. was clearer. The cytoplasm contained vacuoles 

 (After Ijima.) more or less numerous, none of which was 



contractile. After the addition of acetic acid one 



to three nuclei could be distinguished, 8 p. to 15 AI in size. Actual movements were 

 not observed. Taking everything into consideration, the independent nature of these 

 bodies is, to say the least, doubtful, although it cannot be denied that they possess a 

 certain similarity to the marine Amoeba fluida, Griiber or Greeff, and to a few other 

 species. (It is likely that cells present in serous exudation were mistaken for amoebae.) 



APPENDIX. 

 " Rhizopods in Poliomyelitis acuta." 



In three cases of poliomyelitis acuta which were investigated by Ellermann, the 

 spinal fluid obtained by puncture of the cord contained bodies, from io/x to 15 p. in 

 size, which had amoeboid movements and exhibited variously shaped pseudopodia in 

 large numbers. After staining, a usually excentric nucleus, about i'5^ in size, was 

 demonstrated in them. 



