Study of 251 eases of cholera, in no one of which was the spirillum found, but always mixed with one or more bacteria of other kinds. Lesage and Macaigne (Ann. de l'Inst. Pasteur, Jan., '93).
Even by the various methods recom mended by Koch for the recognition of the cholera, bacillus, and, with the great est care and the most accurate knowledge of the subject, it is often impossible to come to a positive result. The cause of the disease is not the conunon bacillus, but some unknown noxious principle. D. Liebreich (Berl. klin. Woch., No. 2S, '93).
Personal experiments carried out with „ a view to determine the specificity of the choleraic bacillus. A. sufficient cpiantity of the micro-orL,anism swallowed to crive rise to the disease, and practically nega tive results obtained. This invalidates the principle of specificity ascribed to the pathogenic microbe, and tends to prove that it is not constantly virulent and able invariably to give rise to cholera. (Pettenkofer and Emmerich.) Pet tenkofer's experiment repeated without injury. At first the experiment ers took only small amounts of choleraic cultures without result, then they took larger amounts, and one of them ate an entire culture of a third generation. In this ease in thirty-six hours came pain in the bowels, tenesnaus, and diarrhcea without particular characteristics. In one other experiment, in which not a. sign of sickness occurred, the cholera ba cillus was found in the normal dejec thins. Hasterlik (Corres. f. Schweizer Aerzte, Apr. 1, '93).
Such experiments prove nothing,. Ev eryone who has lived through an epi demic of cholera knows that there always are a. large number of slight eases. Such inild cases are really cholera, as it can be shown that the dejections contain large quantities of comma Guttmann (Med. Press and Cir ctilar, Jan. 25, '93).
While aecepting, the comma bacillus as the etiological factor of Asiatic cholera. its presence in the intestine necessarily leads to the development of cholera or a eholera-like disease. The presence of comma bacilli in apparently healthy persons supgests that the bacilli may temporarily or permanently lose their virulenee. Piimpf (Centralb. f. klin. Med.. 25, p. 2, '93).
Lesions of cholera produced by giving intravenous injections of cholera bacilli, pure cultures being obtained from the heces. If the animal received doses of absolute alcohol for two days before the injections, the predisposition to the cholera infection was very greatly in creased. Thomas (Archiv f. exper. Path. u. Pharm., vol. xxii, No. 1, '94).
Experiments showing that the activity of the bacilli in the ease of men is not parallel to their virulence in animals.
The course of epidernic.s cannot be at tributed alone to the biological charac teristics of comma bacilli. It is very probable that the symbiosis of the comma bacilli with other species of micro-organ isms found in the dejections and in the intestines of cholera patients plays an important role. Blachstein (St. Peters burger med. Woch., Jan. 27, '94).
Study of 293 cases of cholera in Arabia; the comma bacilli found in 2S0. Also discovered bacilli in his own stools without haying any of the symptoms of cholera. Immunity is possibly the result of an attack of cholera experienced in 1392. Karlinski (Centralb. f. Bakt. u. Parisitenk., May 19, '94).
Very severe and even rapidly fatal eases of cholera occur with all the char acteristic symptoms of the disease, yet careful examination fails to show bacilli in the stools; and that, on the other hand, cases which are clinically identical with mild diarrhcra may yet have a:Min dant bacilli in the discharges. Radecki (St. Petersburger med. Woch., Feb. 17, '94).
It is not sufficient in explaining ty phoid and cholera epidemics to demon strate the presence of the typhoid and cholera bacilli in the water (X), but that there is another factor: a local one con nected with the soil (Pettenkofer's Y). Von Pettenkofer (Miinchener med. Woch., May 2, '99).
Of course, a polluted water-supply may aggravate an epidemic of cholera by furnishing a good medium of culture, and a good water-supply may, on the contrary, lessen an. epidemic; but the spread of the disease, by means of drink ing-water, is not satisfactorily explicable. State of our knowledge rcg,arding the cansation of cholera, as shc»vn b2,- the epidemic of 1892-93. The history of this epidemic shows that the disease does not spread by means of contaminated rivers, sinee it extended from large cities rap idly toward the interior, in the direction opposite to the course of the stream. Neither did the contamination of drink ing-water satisfactorily account for its spread. The dejecta contain cholera ba cilli and the cholera contagimm—viz.: the spores which are produced by the bacilli,—the latter being more tenacious of life than the bacilli, and also more virulent. The disease is spread by arti cles soiled by dejecta or by the diffusion of tbe dried pulverized dejecta, through the air. Consequently cholera epidemics are most apt to arise in dry seasons. The contagium of cholera always enters the system through the digestive apparatus. These deductions teach us the great im portance, from the stand-point of pre vention, of bringing all dejecta and ob jects soiled by them under water as soon as possible. Lachmann (Deutsche med. Zeit., Jan. 4, '94).