CEREBRO-SPINAL MENINGITIS. 285 



CHOLERA. Epidemiologists find it necessary 

 to assume the existence of a living germ in order 

 to explain in a satisfactory manner the origin and 

 epidemic extension of this disease. Evidently the 

 materies morU is capable of self-multiplication ex- 

 ternal to the human body ; and this multiplication 

 is conditioned by circumstances of the same kind 

 as those which influence the development of the 

 lowest organisms, heat, moisture, and the pres- 

 ence of organic material to serve as nutritive 

 pabulum for the hypothetical germ. 



Various attempts have been made to find the 

 cholera germ in infected atmospheres and in the 

 discharges of cholera patients, but thus far no 

 satisfactory results have been attained. 



Since the above was written, Koch has an- 

 nounced the discovery of a bacillus believed by 

 him to be the much-sought cholera " germ." This 

 is a comma-shaped, mobile, micro-organism which 

 is found in the rice-water discharges of cholera 

 patients, and in the intestines of those dead of the 

 disease. When death occurs during the stage of 

 reaction the bacilli are not found in the contents 

 of the bowel, but within the mucous membrane 

 and in the tubular glands. Extended researches 

 made in Egypt, and more recently in France, 

 have shown the uniform presence of this bacillus 

 in cases of true Asiatic cholera, and its absence 

 from the discharges of patients suffering from sim- 

 ple diarrhoea, dysentery, and other intestinal dis- 

 orders. The bacillus forms characteristic colonies 



