YEAST-LIKE FUNGI OF THE HUMAN INTES- 

 TINAL TRACT* 



PLATES 3-8 



HARRY WARREN ANDERSON 

 From the Department of Plant Pathology of the University of Illinois, Urbana 



INTRODUCTION 



The fungi as contrasted with the bacteria are relatively unimpor- 

 tant in animal pathology. However, some of the earliest attempts 

 to associate micro-organisms with disease resulted in the discovery of 

 fungi as their causal agents. The fungi causing thrush and ringworm 

 were known and well described before any of the pathogenic bacteria 

 had been isolated. During the last quarter of the 19th century the 

 bacterial diseases have taken much of the time of students of human 

 pathology and it has been only during the last 15 or 20 years that 

 they have again turned their attention to the less important fungous 

 diseases. Interest has been centered largely in those diseases grouped 

 under the general name blastomycoses, so called because the organisms 

 concerned have, at some stage in their life history, budding vegetative 

 cells. 



The budding or yeast-like fungi have been so constantly associated 

 with various diseases within recent years and so much confusion exists 

 concerning their life histories and proper botanical position, that it 

 has been thought worth while to make a special study of these organ- 

 isms from a mycologic standpoint. It was first considered essential 

 to ascertain whether or not the budding fungi were present in the 

 human body, their relative abundance under normal and abnormal 

 conditions and their relation to each other and to the pathogenic 

 blastomycetes isolated by other investigators. 



The objects of the present investigation were therefore: 



1. To determine the presence or absence and the relative abundance 

 of yeast-like fungi in the normal alimentary tract. 



2. To compare the number and kinds isolated from the normal 

 alimentary tract with those found in persons suffering from gastro- 

 intestinal disturbances. 



* Received for publication May 24, 1917. 



