M. W. Jepps and C. Dobell 
855 
almost homogeneous; but in specimens from which the stain has been 
extracted to a greater extent, and in those stained with paracarmine, 
haemalum, or by other progressive metliods, it is seen to consist of a 
number of distinct granules of chromatin probably embedded in a plastin 
matrix (see Figs. 4, 5, 9, 10, etc.). Frequently one of these chromatin 
granules appears larger and more deeply stained than the others. Some¬ 
times also a separate granule can be seen lying at the centre of the 
karyosome (cf. Fig. 9); but for reasons which have been given by one 
of us elsewhere (C. D., 1914), we shall not call this, or any other granule 
in the karyosome, a centriole. From the evidence before us we have no 
means of judging whether a centriole is present or not. In binucleate 
individuals the nuclei vary in their relative position. Sometimes they 
are in contact (Figs. 4, 13), sometimes separated to a greater or less 
extent (Figs. 5, 6, 10, etc.). 
The food of the amoeba,' judged from the inclusions in the food 
vacuoles, consists entirely of small bacteria and yeasts living in the 
intestinal contents. 
The exact habitat of the organism in the intestine we cannot state 
with certainty, but the following observations indicate its probable 
location. One of our cases is infected with Lamblia as well as with 
Dientamoeha, and two others with Entamoeba coli. Lamblia, of course, 
lives as an active flagellate in the small intestine, only its cysts being 
found as a rule in the colon; whereas both the free amoebae and the 
cysts of E. coli are found in the large intestine alone. Dientamoeba is 
present in the stools of an infected person only when they are soft or 
diarrhoeic. At such times it is accompanied by the active forms of 
E. coli, in the cases infected with this organism; but by the cysts—not 
the flagellates—of Lamblia in the case harbouring this protozoon. We 
conclude from this that the amoeba occupies a site in the intestine 
where it is accompanied by free E. coli and encysted Lamblia-, in other- 
words, that it probably lives in the colon. 
One of the most characteristic features of the amoeba is its extreme 
frailness after it has left the body—a character which suggested the 
specific name which we propose below. As a rule the majority of the 
individuals in a stool become roirnded and begin to degenerate almost 
immediately. Unless examined on a warm stage, they rapidly cease to 
move, and die. The process of degeneration is so characteristic, and the 
degenerate individuals are so often the only forms present when the 
faeces of infected persons are examined, that we shall describe them in 
detail. Usually the first sign of degeneration in the living organism is 
