On the prevalence of carriers of endamoeba dysenteriae among soldiers returned from overseas service

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ON THE PREVALENCE OF CARRIERS OF ENDAMCEBA DYSENTERI/E AMONG SOLDIERS RETURNED FROM OVERSEAS SERVICE.* By CHARLES ATWOOD KOFOID and OLIVE SWEZY, University of California. Dysentery has long been known as one of tlie major liorrors attendant upon war. Its effects are recordecl not only in the roll of honor and the pension lists, but in reduced levels of health and resistance to clisease of survivors and in widely spread foci of infection whieli follow in the wake of dispersing armies. This is especially true of the dysenteries and diarrheas of protozoán origin due to intestinal infections by Encíamooba dysentericz, by the flagellates Giarclia, Chilomastix and Trichomonas, and to a less extent, by the ciliate Balantidium. In contrast with the bacillary infections producing dysentery, the protozoán infections appear, in the light of our present knowledge, to be more persistent and to pass more readily into the carrier phase in which the host may apparently liave normál health, though liable to relapses. In this carrier phase the infected person is discharging intermittently great numbers of encysted stages of the of the parasite and becomes a permanent menace to the health of his family and associates as a source of new initial infections in the family and commimity. Meclical literature of the last century bears witness to the ravages of dysentery in our Civil War and thereafter and oí' the eíflorescence of dysentery and liver abscess in the United States after the Spanisli-American and Philippine Wars, and in Germany after the return of the troops from the Boxer expedition. The recent World War with its Egyptian, Mesopotamiau, Balkan and Turkish campaigns, and its Western Front with troops of intermingled nationalities, has afforded unprecedented facilities for „ , 'ta'1 at the Orleans Meet.ing, American SiTiety of Tropical Medicine, April •« Dj J. y m U • Vissza