Abstract
1. Chemo-therapeutic tests, in vitro with the non-pathogenic cultural amoebae and with the pathogenic E. histolytica have yielded results of some value in the development of the therapy of amoebic dysentery.
2. Appropriate conditions for experimental therapy in animals can be secured by infecting cats with E. histolytica. The procedure is rendered difficult but not impractical by secondary bacterial infection. Successful results are dependent upon an early diagnosis followed by immediate vigorous treatment.
3. Experimental amoebic dysentery in cats responds to emetine in fundamentally the same way as the spontaneous disease in man.
4. Infections with E. histolytica in cats were treated successfully with emetine and quinine but not with papaverine. Emetine and papaverine possess certain chemical groupings in common; namely, the four methoxy radicals. Quinine has he methoxy radical; its general structure is unlike papaverine and presumably unlike emetine.
5. Massive doses of quinine were employed in the treatment of cats; in contrast to emetine, repetitions of the effective dose were tolerated for many days.
6. We do not wish to imply that emetine or any of the drugs in use at present constitute a satisfactory treatment for the chronic advanced cases of amoebic dysentery. We merely wish to open another line of procedure for the further investigation of the therapy of this disease.
Footnotes
- Received December 4, 1923.
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