The Incidence and Significance of Infestation with Endamoeba Histolytica in New Orleans and the American Tropics

Abstract

Fifteen years after Loesch (1875) first identified the ameba parasitic in the tissues of the large bowel as the etiologic agent of one of the two commonest types of dysentery Osler (1890) apparently diagnosed the first case of amebic dysentery in the Western World, although the record of Toribio González (1883) in Caracas possibly needs priority consideration. Immediately afterwards there followed the clinical observations of Stengel (1890) and Musser (1892), while the classical study of Councilman and Lafleur (1891–1892) on the pathology of the dysentery ameba will always serve as a landmark in clinical protozoology. The earliest clinical records from the South are those of Parker (1884–1885) in Virginia, Patterson in South Carolina (1895), and Ashton (1895) in Texas. The earliest contribution from New Orleans on this subject was Simon's masterful study of fifty cases (1909). Six years later DeBuys (1914) emphasized the fact that amebic dysentery was relatively rare in children, although it followed the same course as it did in adults.