A KEMAKKABLE HE ACTION OF THE 

 TYPHOID BACILLUS. 



By A. JEFFERIS TURNER, M.D., Lond. 



[Head hcfayc tJic lldj/nl Sm-iiii/ of (jHci'iislinid, 12th June, 1897. 



The microscopical reaction which I show you to-night, may 

 appear a very insignificant matter to most of you. Nevertheless, 

 it represents a discovery of very great practical value. Further- 

 more, it is a reaction of such a strange and remarkable 

 •character, that I would not venture to describe it to you unless 

 I were able to let you see it with your own eyes. 



A few words of introduction are necessary to enable you to 

 understand what the reaction is. It has long been known that 

 two very fatal diseases affecting man — Asiatic Cholera and 

 Typhoid Fever — are due to bacteria which can be readily iso- 

 lated from the body after death, or the discharges during life. 

 In the first the organism is a curved rod, in the second a straight 

 rod, both showing very agile swimming movements. In both 

 instances great difficulty, not to say impossibility, has been 

 found in distinguishing these disease organisms, when found 

 outside the human body, for instance in drinking water, from 

 other organisms almost exactly resembling them, but quite 

 innocent of any disease-producing qualities. Some years ago. 

 Professor Pfeift'er, one of the best known of the pupils of the 

 illustrious Koch, made the remarkable discovery that the blood 

 and body fiuids of an animal, which had recovered from the ill- 

 ness produced by an injection of cholera poison, had the power 

 of paralysing the movements of the cholera vibrio ; but had no 

 such effect on vibrios which were not the same as the cholera 



