TOO THE BACTERIA IN ASIATIC CHOLERA. [CH. 



larger than Koch's and their cultures in gelatine plates are 

 altogether different. While I have no doubt that his grandes 

 virgules fortement incurvees correspond not to Koch's comma- 

 bacilli, but to certain forms normally present, I have grave 

 doubts about his colonies of these normal comma-bacilli 

 from the guinea-pig. I have tried over and over again to 

 isolate these by plate-cultivation, but have never succeeded 

 in growing them. 



A somewhat similar statement is made by Mr. Watson 

 Cheyne on p. 13 of his pamphlet (a reprint of a series of 

 articles that had appeared in the British Medical Journal 

 of April 25, May 2, May 16, and May 23, 1885) : "One of 

 the most peculiar forms (of comma-bacilli) which I have 

 seen was found in the contents of the large intestine of 

 guinea-pigs, which died after injection of cholera-bacilli. 

 I tested the fluid by cultivation at the time very carefully, 

 and found that it contained almost a pure cultivation of 

 cholera-bacilli ; there was certainly not more than one 

 other kind of bacilli for every hundred cholera-bacilli. The 

 appearance of this material, on microscopical examination, 

 after staining, is shown in the accompanying figure (Fig. 5). 

 Large, fat, coiled, almost worm-like organisms will be seen, 

 which, as I know by cultivation, are cholera-bacilli, but 

 which could not be recognised by the microscope alone." 

 Now it is a fact, easily verified, that what Mr. Watson 

 Cheyne here describes and figures, are forms present in the 

 contents of the large intestine of every normal guinea-pig, 

 as I pointed out in a note in the British Medical Journal 

 (May 9, 1885). 



Those organisms figured and described by Mr. Watson 

 Cheyne, which he thought he identified by cultivation as 

 cholera- bacilli, can be easily demonstrated by spreading on 

 a cover-glass a thin film of the contents of the caecum of any 



