VIL] PRODUCTION OF CHOLERA. 131 



ment, which, for want of a better term, I called paraptomaine ; 

 this ferment, when introduced into the stomach of mice, pro- 

 duced acute gastro-enteritis, such as the veal-pie did in the 

 human beings who partook of it. 



Considered in this light there seems a striking analogy 

 to exist between the chemical poison produced in certain 

 artificial cultures of the choleraic comma-bacilli and the 

 ptomaines produced in putrefactive processes such as have 

 been investigated by Brieger. In both the chemical fer- 

 ment does not pass unscathed through the gastric juice. 

 Series of experiments have been made by a number of 

 workers by introducing into the stomach cholera stools or the 

 contents of cholera intestine and artificial cultures, but 

 without any result. Numbers of people continually partake 

 of substances (meat, game, &c.) that probably contain, 

 judging from the number of putrefactive organisms present 

 in them, considerable quantities of ptomaines, yet no dis- 

 turbance occurs, while in other cases (mackerel, sausage, &c.) 

 serious mischief is produced ; these latter cases cannot be 

 simply due to ptomaines produced by putrefaction in the 

 ordinary acceptation of the term. But let the ptomaines 

 obtained by putrefactive processes be introduced subcu- 

 taneously, by the vascular system or otherwise, and inde- 

 pendently of the stomach and such experiments have been 

 repeatedly made by a large number of workers (see Dr. 

 Brunton's recent work on the Disorders of Digestion) and 

 the result is acute poisoning. And such is evidently also 

 the nature of the chemical poison present in certain cultiva- 

 tions of the choleraic comma-bacilli. That only certain 

 cultivations of the comma-bacilli contain this poison in a 

 concentrated form, while others contain little or none, is, as 

 shown in the experiments by van Ermengem, Hueppe, and 

 others above mentioned, quite in harmony with Brieger's 



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