Entamoeba
Entamoeba is a genus of Amoebozoa found as internal parasites or commensals of animals. In 1875, Fedor Lösch described the first proven case of amoebic dysentery in St Petersburg, Russia. He referred to the amoeba he observed microscopically as 'Amoeba coli'; however it is not clear whether he was using this as a descriptive term or intended it as a formal taxonomic name. The genus
Entamoeba was defined by Casagrandi and Barbagallo for the species
Entamoeba coli, which is known to be a commensal organism. Lösch's organism was renamed
Entamoeba histolytica by Fritz Schaudinn in 1903; he later died, in 1906, from a self-inflicted infection when studying this amoeba. For a time during the first half of the 20th century the entire genus
Entamoeba was transferred to
Endamoeba, a genus of amoebas infecting invertebrates about which little is known. This move was reversed by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature in the late 1950s, and
Entamoeba has stayed 'stable' ever since.