128 



The Philippine Journal of Science 



1917 



suffered from dysentery or previous hepatic congestion of the 

 liver. In our series, there are two cases with distinct history 

 of chilling. 



Seasonal prevalence. — Davidson (4) states that, according to 

 the majority of the Indian authors, liver abscess is most common 

 at the end of the rains and at the beginning of the cold season. 

 Rogers, (27) however, in comparatively recent work on seasonal 

 prevalence of amoebic colitis, concludes that the most frequent 

 occurrence of this intestinal infection is at the beginning of the 

 rainy season. Deeks and Shaw (28) have the same to say in 

 Panama with regard to the prevalence of amoebic colitis. If we 

 take the prevalence of amoebic dysentery as a basis for the oc- 

 currence of amoebic liver abscess, we would naturally think that 

 liver abscess would also be more prevalent at the beginning of 

 the rainy season rather than at the end. Table II shows the 

 distribution of our cases by months considered at the onset 

 of the symptoms referable to liver abscess. In the first instance 

 we notice the predominance of the cases during the cool months, 

 that is January and February. With regard to time of onset, 

 we have the majority of the cases during the rainy season. 



Table II. — Distribution by months of 38 cases of liver abscess among 



Filipinos. 



Month. 



January . . . 

 February .. 



March 



April 



May 



June 



July 



Au^UBt 



September. 



October 



November . 

 December . 



Total 



On admis- 

 sion. 



38 



At time of 

 onset of 

 abscesses. 



38 



Dividing our cases into groups representing the admission 

 during periods of three months, or quarterly, we find the same 

 results as obtained in the above table. In the first quarter, the 

 cooler part of the year, we have the majority of the cases at 

 the time of admission and at the time of onset. The predomi- 

 nance is confined to the third quarter, that part of the year with 

 the most rainfall. 



