i8 THE BACTERIA IN ASIATIC CHOLERA. [CH. 



also left to decay without anything being added to them. 

 In gelatine-cultivations, the comma-bacilli have been 

 cultivated up to six weeks, also in serum of blood, in milk, 

 and on potatoes, on which anthrax-bacilli are known to form 

 spores extremely rapidly and in great abundance. But we have 

 never obtained a permanent state of the comma-bacilli. As 

 we know that the majority of bacilli have a permanent or 

 resting state, this result appears very striking. But I will 

 remind you here of what I mentioned before, that we have 

 most probably to deal with a micro-organism which is not a 

 genuine bacillus at all, but is more allied to the group of 

 screw-shaped bacteria, or spirilla; but we do not know of 

 any permanent state of spirilla as yet. Spirilla are bacteria 

 which depend for their existence exclusively on liquids, and 

 do not, like anthrax-bacilli, vegetate under certain conditions 

 in which they have for once to endure a dry state. It 

 therefore seems to me, as far at least as my experience goes, 

 that there is no prospect of rinding a permanent state of 

 comma-bacilli. 



" In accordance with the cholera-material that I have so 

 far examined, I think I can now assert that comma-bacilli 

 are never found absent in cases of cholera ; they are something 

 that is specific to cholera. 



"As a test, a considerable number of other corpses, 

 dejecta from patients and persons in good health, and other 

 substances containing bacteria, were examined to see if 

 these bacilli, which were never missing in cases of cholera, 

 might, perhaps, occur elsewhere also. This is a point of 

 the greatest importance in judging of the causal connection 

 between comma-bacilli and cholera. 



" Amongst these objects for investigation was the corpse of 

 a man who had had cholera six weeks before, and had 

 afterwards died of anaemia. There was no farther trace of 



