CHAPTER I. 



THE HISTORY OF THE COMMA-BACILLUS. 



A GOOD many statements of microscopists are on record 

 concerning the occurrence of various forms of bacteria in 

 the dejecta of cholera-patients, 1 but since these statements 

 referred to gross morphological characters only they were 

 not considered of great value. To say that there occurred in 

 the dejecta of cholera-patients micrococci, bacilli, and 

 vibrios, is not one whit more than to say that in human faecal 

 matter occur these same forms of bacteria. Mr. Fowke 2 

 claims for Brittan and Swain to have shown in 1849 the 

 occurrence in the choleraic dejecta of the comma-bacilli in 

 the shape of peculiar circular and semicircular corpuscles, 

 which were declared by them not only to be peculiar, but 

 also to have a causal relation to cholera morbus. Looking 

 at the drawings and descriptions reproduced by Mr. Fowke, 

 it does not impress me that these corpuscles are identical, 

 as they are claimed to be, with Koch's comma-bacilli, but I 

 am rather inclined to think that what is there depicted and 

 described are altered and decolourised blood-discs. There 



* Hassall, Bristowe, Klob, Lewis and Cunningham, and others. 

 2 British Medical Journal , March 21, 1885. 



