CHOLERA. 629 



had not been shown, however, that the bacillus was in the water be- 

 fore the outbreak of cholera. Koch is of opinion that all the bacilli 

 in the water-tank could not have come from the washing of clothes of 

 cholera-patients, but must have partly been derived from multiplica- 

 tion, yet he forgets that, as he himself has shown, the meat-broth in 

 which the bacilli grow must not be too dilute. It would have been 

 interesting if Koch had estimated the strength of the nutritive mate- 

 rial in the water-tank. But what chiefly contradicts the doctrines of 

 the contagionists is the simultaneous disappearance of the cholera on 

 land and the cholera bacillus in the water-tank. If it were really true 

 that every case of cholera, the first as well as the last in an epidemic, 

 had the same infective material in its intestinal discharge, and that 

 the epidemic only ceased because the susceptibility of man had passed 

 away, then the bacillus would continue to exist in the tank, always 

 supposing that there was suflBcient pabulum for it. And thus it is 

 most probable that the bacillus gets into the tank from man, and not 

 vice versa. While Koch was in Calcutta the English physicians there 

 imbued him with their views on cholera and drinking - water. The 

 English had been brought up on the drinking-water theory of typhoid 

 fever and cholera, and could only lay it aside with difficulty. But a 

 few of those English physicians who had studied wide-spread epidemics 

 had renounced their original ideas. Dr. Bryden (the chief of the Sta- 

 tistical Department), Dr. J. M. Cuningham (the sanitary commissioner), 

 Dr. John Macpherson (the Inspector-General of the Bengal Army), 

 Dr. Lewis, and Dr. Douglas Cunningham were all disbelievers in the 

 drinking-water theory. Koch was further strengthened in his views, 

 in opposition to the few Englishmen just named, from the fact that 

 after Fort William in Calcutta was supplied with pure water no more 

 cases of cholera occurred there, although it had formerly been ravaged 

 by the disease. The gentlemen in Calcutta had not, however, told 

 Koch the whole truth. For it was a fact that cholera had begun to 

 decrease in Fort William since 1863, and yet the fresh water-supply 

 was introduced as late as March 25, 1873. Moreover, it was not true 

 that the only improvement then effected was a change in the w^ater- 

 supply, for many other changes were carried out, the fortress being 

 made a model of cleanliness. Alterations in the drainage of the soil 

 were effected in and around the foundations of the building, which 

 before this was nothing more than a morass during the rainy season ; 

 so that, inasmuch as the nature of the soil, as well as the drinking-wa- 

 ter, was changed, the case of Fort William affords an argument as 

 much in favor of the localists as it does for the contagionists. I may 

 here call to mind an episode which was much commented on at the 

 time, and which is perhaps of the nature of an experiment. Macna- 

 mara writes, in his work on cholera : " In connection with this position 

 I may narrate a case which happened in another part of the country, 

 but for which the facts can be vouched. Some dejecta from a case of 



