I4O BACTERIOLOGY. 



infection, and that the comma-bacilli of Koch were 

 again found in the intestinal contents, and fresh 

 cultivations established. 



On the other hand, these researches have been 

 discredited, and the results of inoculation attributed 

 to septicaemic poisoning.* The whole subject must 

 be re-investigated, and reports of results arrived at 

 by recent investigations in Spain will be looked 

 forward to with interest. The comma-bacilli are 

 found in the superficial necrosed layer of the intes- 

 tine, in the mucous flakes and liquid contents of 

 the intestinal canal of cases of Asiatic cholera. 

 They were also detected in a tank in India, which 

 contained the water supply to a neighbourhood 

 where cholera cases occurred. The comma-bacilli 

 are aerobic, and their development is arrested by 

 deprivation of air. They are destroyed by drying 

 and the presence of various antiseptic substances. 



METHODS OF STAINING THE COMMA-BACILLI 

 OF KOCH. 



In cover-glass preparations they may be well stained in 

 the ordinary way with an aqueous solution of methyl violet 

 or fuchsine, or in the rapid method, without passing through 

 the flame (p. 48, Babes' method). 



In sections of the intestine their presence may be demon- 

 strated by 



* Klein, Brit. Med. Journal, 1885 ) Lankester, Nineteenth 

 Century, July, 1885. 



