62 



It is stated that this is an ' autochthonous ' case of amoebic 

 dysentery, but details of previous history are not given ; it being 

 merely noted that 'contact with amoebic dysentery patients 

 could not be established '. The administration of emetine appears 

 to have had no curative effect. 



Case 2. — A 'young' man (no age stated) who had suffered 

 from clinical dysentery in the army. He had had frequent 

 stools — sometimes containing mucus, but no blood — accompanied 

 by tenesmus, for a year and a half. Amoebae (none containing 

 red blood corpuscles) and cysts measuring 10-12 /i in diameter 

 were found in the stools, and identified as those of JS. histolytica. 

 No other essential facts are recorded. 



Case 3. — Regarded by the author as doubtful. A man, aged 

 24, suffering from ' colitis '. He had served in the army from 

 1914 to 1918. In his stools 'a few amoebae with phagocytized 

 red blood corpuscles ' were found — also, it may be noted, macro- 

 phages containing the same inclusions. No cysts were found, 

 and no other essential details are given. 



Although Fischer calls all these cases indigenous, and says 

 they prove that there are ' actually autochthonous cases of amoebic 

 dysentery in G-ermany ', no proof of these statements is supplied 

 in the present paper. The author merely records cases of 

 amoebic dysentery, or ampebic infection, detected in Germany. 

 Further evidence is necessary to establish the fact that the 

 infections were contracted in that country. The author does not 

 allude to any earlier observations bearing upon this subject, but 

 I may mention that at least one indigenous case appears to have 

 been previously recorded. For Jlirgens (1906) states that he per- 

 formed a post-mortem examination on a boy of 16, at the Charity 

 Hospital (Berlin), who had lived in Germany all his life but 

 presented, notwithstanding, typical lesions of amoebic dysentery. 



The foregoing observations, "^vhile they show the necessity of 

 further work along similar lines, make it clear, I believe, that 

 M histolytica, occurs indigenously in France, Holland, and 

 Germany. They supply no exact figures for comparison with 

 those now available for Britain, but they indicate clearly that 

 the conditions found in this country are not peculiar. Indeed, 

 they make it highly probable that the incidence of infection with 

 M histolytica — and other intestinal protozoa — within our shores 

 is not greater, nor the occurrence of amoebic diseases commoner, 

 than in the countries inhabited by our nearest neighbours in 

 Europe. 



