38 



was the wife of a soldier and had been to India with her husband, 

 and had suffered from dysentery whilst there. The other person 

 carrying Entamoeba histolytica had never been abroad and had 

 never suffered from dysentery. He had been a butcher, but had 

 been in the workhouse infirmary about six years. 



In the fifty-five persons who had never been abroad the 

 intestinal protozoa were found in the following numbers : 



JEntamoela histolytica 

 E. coli 



Endolimax nana 

 Giardia intestinalis 

 CIrilomastix mesnili 



1 case 

 10 cases 



4 „ 



2 „ 



3 „ 



My thanks are due to Captain J. E. Dickson, E.A.M.C., officer 

 in charge of the Central Laboratory, for kindly arranging for the 

 work to be done under his supervision ; and also to Dr. Forbes, 

 Medical Officer of Health for Brighton, to whom we were indebted 

 for the supply of specimens. 



[In addition to the foregoing brief report, Mr. Thacker has 

 sent an account of two military patients investigated by him at 

 Brighton. These cases were studied with great care, and their 

 histories inquired into in considerable detail ; but as both of 

 them had been abroad, they could not be included in the 

 ' British ' series. As the evidence shows, both were cases of 

 typical amoebic dysentery : but the evidence shows, further, that 

 they probably contracted this disease in England. There are, 

 moreover, indications of the way in which they may have 

 acquired their infections with E. histolytica. So little is known 

 at present about cases of English amoebic dysentery, and about 

 the manner of acquiring infection with the parasite, that no 

 excuse seems needed for publishing these two cases here in some 

 detail.] 



Notes on two cases of amoebic dysentery probably acquired in 



England. 



Case 1. — This patient's father was in the army. During the 

 Egyptian campaign of 1883 he had a severe attack of dysentery. 

 He never recovered from this dysentery, but had repeated 

 relapses, and died in 1890 of dysentery and Bright's disease. 

 The present patient, who was born in 1884, developed dysentery 

 when a small child (about 2 years old), and it was surmised that 

 he had 'caught it from his father'. He did not have it very 

 severely ; but in the acute stage he passed about 20 stools 

 per diem with much pain in the region of the colon. After 

 this, all through his life, he had periodic severe relapses, four 

 to six times a year. He had 15 to 20 stools per diem in these 

 relapses, with severe pain. The patient states that he used 

 sometimes to see blood in his stools during these attacks, but 

 as a rule the bleeding was not profuse. ' He grew up generally 

 delicate, and became a boot repairer. He joined the army in 

 1915, and while in the army had several of his usual rather mild 



