PREFACE. 



THE present volume is a reprint of a series of articles 

 published in the Practitioner (October 1886, to May 1887). 

 Since that time a considerable number of contributions have 

 been made to the knowledge of the comma-bacilli of Koch. 

 These have been added to the present volume ; but besides 

 these no noteworthy addition has been made to our know- 

 ledge of the bacteria in Asiatic cholera. This need not at 

 all surprise us, considering that with few exceptions most 

 Continental pathologists consider the comma-bacilli of Koch 

 as being the cause of cholera/ that is to say as being the 

 real cholera microbes. They consider the chapter of 

 the etiology of Cholera Asiatica as closed, and there is 

 therefore no need to look for any other and new cholera 

 microbe. I have ventured to differ from this opinion 

 when writing the above articles in the Practitioner, and after 

 all the observations published by various pathoiogists since 

 then, I still differ from the proposition that Koch's comma- 

 bacilli have been satisfactorily proved to be the cause of 

 cholera. 



