

AMOEBA MIURAI 39 



an abscess on the floor of the oral cavity, from which pus was artificially 

 evacuated. The pus in addition to many different kinds of bacteria also 

 contained amoebae. These amoebae were larger than leucocytes, and exhibited 

 granular plasm and vacuoles ; the nucleus could not be distinctly made out. 



The pseudopode formation, which ceased at a low temperature, could 

 again be brought into play by warming the slide. 



Doflein conjectures that in both the cases quoted it was a question of 

 dysenteric amoebae, though there was no history of previous dysentery in 

 either case. It has long been known that Amoeba dysenterica appears in 

 dysenteric hepatic abscesses and in the secondary pulmonary abscesses 

 that occasionally follow. An observation by Nasse, 1 who operated on a 

 dysenteric hepatic abscess, shows that the amoebae may also penetrate still 

 further. In this case gangrene of the wound subsequently set in, and the 

 amoebae were found not only in the hepatic abscess, but subsequently also 

 in the wound, in the skin, and even in the muscular system. 



The "amoebae" found by Berndt- in the pus from a hepatic abscess 

 (after typhus) appear to be entirely problematical formations. 



8. Amoeba miurai, Ijima.* 



Under this term the author describes protoplasmatic bodies 

 which Miura, in Tokyo, found in the serous fluid of a woman, 

 aged 26, who had died from pleuritis and peritonitis endothelio- 

 matosa ; two days before death these same forms had also appeared 

 in the haemorrhagic faeces of the patient. The bodies were 

 usually spheroid or ellipsoidal, and at one 

 pole carried a small protuberance beset 

 with filamentous short pseudopodia, re- 

 sembling the appendages possessed by 

 free-living amoebinae. Their size varied 

 between 0-015 an d 0-038 mm. ; the 

 plasma was finely granular, and no FlG 6 ._ Ama}ba miurai> xj., 



difference was observable in the ecto- 500/1: (a) fresh ; (6) after treat - 



n _ i ji -n i ment with dilute acetic acid. 



and endo- sarc, only the vinous appendage ( A f ter ijima.) 



was lighter : the plasma contained vacuoles 



more or less numerous, none of which were contractile. After the 



addition of acetic acid one to three nuclei could be distinguished, 



0-008 to 0-015 m s i ze - Actual movements were not observed. 



Taking everything into consideration, the independent nature of 



1 Nasse, " Ueb. ein. Amcebenfund b. Leberabsc. u. Dys." (Dtsch. med. Wochenschr., 

 1891, p. 881). 



* Berndt, F., " Protoz. in ein. Leberabsc." (Dtsche. Zeitschr. f. Chir., 1895, xl.,.p.i63). 



: ' Tjima, ]., "On a New Rhizopod Parasite of Man" (Annot. zonl. japon, 1898, 

 ii., 3, p. 85) ; ref. in C. /. B. t P. u. /., 1899, xxv., p. 885. 



