RE LA T10NS OF AMCEBsE TO DISEASE. 489 



inflammatory reaction. In this way the ulcers are lined by 

 sloughing tissue, and have often an undermined character. 

 These lesions are considered by Councilman and Lafleur 

 to be characteristic of amoebic dysentery. In the liver 

 abscesses associated with dysentery the amoebae are usually 

 to be found, and not infrequently are the only organisms 

 present. The action here on the tissues is of an analogous 

 nature, namely, a necrosis with softening and partial lique- 

 faction, attended by little or no suppurative change. The 

 amoebae have also been found in the sputum when a liver 

 abscess has ruptured into the lung, as not very infrequently 

 happens. 



Relations to the Disease. It may be stated in the 

 first place that cultures of these amoebae outside the body 

 have not been obtained. Kartulis announced that he had 

 cultivated the organism on straw infusion, but it is now 

 recognised that his results are erroneous, the amcebas 

 observed by him being probably derived from the infusion 

 itself. In fact, everything seems to show that the amoebae 

 in their usual form rapidly disintegrate outside the body, 

 and it is still unknown in what form they survive and lead 

 to the propagation of the disease. The points of distinction 

 between the amoeba of dysentery and the ordinary amoeba 

 coli, so far as the morphology is concerned, are that the 

 latter is on the whole of smaller size, its protoplasm is 

 more finely granular, and it does not appear to take up 

 red corpuscles, etc., as is the case with the former. The 

 distinction, however, can only be definitely drawn by the 

 result of experiment. Injection of certain quantities of 

 dysenteric stools containing the amcebae into various 

 animals per rectum, has been carried out by different 

 observers, especially by Kruse and Pasquale. In cats, in 

 the majority of cases, a haemorrhagic enteritis is produced, 

 amoebae being present in the stools and also invading the 

 mucous membrane of the intestine in the ulcerated areas 

 which are sometimes formed. The deep infiltration of the 

 submucous coat by the amoebae, which is so characteristic 

 a feature in the human disease, does not occur in these 



