6 THE BACTERIA IN ASIATIC CHOLERA. [CH. 



can be, however, no question about this, that if these 

 corpuscles are really the same as Koch's comma-bacilli, 

 their discoverers did not establish, and by reason of the 

 then crude state of bacteriological research could not 

 have established, that they represented a definite species. 



The first account of the presence in the cholera-intestine 

 and cholera-dejecta of a definite species of bacteria character- 

 istic of cholera was given by Koch. We give his own 

 words. 1 



" When we examined the intestine and its contents under 

 the microscope, it was seen that, in some cases, especially in 

 those in which the Peyer's glands were red at the edge, an 

 invasion of bacteria corresponding to this redness had taken 

 place. The bacteria had partly forced their way into the 

 utricular glands, partly pushed themselves between the 

 epithelium and the basement-membrane, thereby lifting the 

 epithelium as it were. In other parts it was seen that they 

 had forced their way deeper into the tissue. Then cases 

 were found in which, behind these bacteria, which had a 

 special appearance with regard to size and shape, so that one 

 could distinguish them from other bacteria and devote 

 special attention to them, various other bacteria forced their 

 way into the utricular glands and the surrounding tissue, e.g., 

 large thick bacilli and very thin bacilli. Thereby conditions 

 were produced similar to those in necrotic diphtheritic 

 changes of the mucous membrane of the intestine and in 

 typhoid ulcers, where afterwards other nonpathogenic 

 bacteria force their way into the tissue rendered necrotic by 

 pathogenic bacteria. We were, therefore, from the very be- 

 ginning, obliged to look upon these first-mentioned bacteria 



1 Conferenz zur Erorterung der Cholerafrage^ Berliner klin. Woch .31, 

 1884. Translated in the British Med. Journal, August 30 and 

 September 6, 1884. 



