28 DISEASES DUE TO PROTOZOA 



The Hindu surgeon, Sushrula, wrote lliree to four centuries B.C. 

 that : — 



" He falls an easy victim to internal and external diseases who 

 drinks of, or bathes in, a pool of water which is full of poisonous 

 ■worms, or is saturated with urine, or fc'ocal matter, or is defiled with 

 the germs of vermin or decomposed animal organisms, or is covered 

 over with the growth of aquatic plants, or is strewn over with withered 

 and decomposed leaves, or which in anv ^^•a\• is rendered poisonous and 

 rontaminated, as well as he who drinks and kvUlies in the freshlv 

 collected water of a pool or reservoir during the rains." 



Hippocrates seems to have introduced the term " dysentery " and 

 to have dififerentiated it from diarrhoea. 



Most ancient writers of the Near East were acquainted with it. 



534 A.D. there was an epidemic of dysentery in France. 



820. It occurred as an epidemic in Hungary. 



1083-1113. It was in Germany in epidemic form, and in 



13 16 it visited England as an epidemic. 



Wars, famine and foul drinking water were the chief allies of the 

 various epidemics. 



1 2 16. King John died from it. Edward I (1307) and Sir Francis 

 Drake (1595) both were attacked by it a few days before their deaths. 



141 1. The military camp at Bordeaux lost 14,000 men by it. 



1538. The first European pandemic took place, which was followed 

 by at least six others some time later. Some of these pandemics lasted 

 for three years. 



1655. Cromwell's failure to take St. Domingo was due to dvsenterv. 

 There were 1,700 deaths during the three weeks of the conflict among 

 the troops and islanders. The disease decimated the same troops when 

 they took Jamaica from the Spanish. 



1870. The Franco-German War lost 2,380 deaths from dysenter\-. 



1859. The living amoebcC were found in the faeces at Prague bv 

 Lambl. 



1873. Losch at St. Petersburg found and described for the first 

 time the amoeba when he called it "Amoeba coli," an organism now 

 believed to have been the Entamoeba tetragena in that particular case. 



1883. Koch differentiated the two main types of dysentery, amoebic 

 and bacillary. 



1893. Kruse and Pasrjuale differentiated the two types of ama?ba>, 

 the harmless coli and the pathogenic tetragena. 



1894. Japan had 38,094 deaths from the disease during the land 

 campaign with China. They lost three from disease to one from 

 Avounds. 



In the Russian War these figures were reversed. 



