VIIL] THE INFECTIVENESS OF CHOLERA. 161 



ascertained ; but surely this does not make them necessarily 

 the more important. Kern described l a bacillus under the 

 name of Dispora caucasica, which is very peculiar, and which 

 he found in the Caucasus ; it is used, as he first thought, as 

 a ferment to produce from cows' milk a peculiar drink, called 

 kephir or hippo. This bacillus is quite peculiar and dis- 

 tinguished from all other bacilli ; it is constantly present in 

 such fermented milk, and is constantly present in the 

 material taken from fermented milk and used by the natives 

 to infect fresh milk. Yet, Kern himself afterwards showed 

 that it is not the Dispora caucasica at all which is the fer- 

 ment, but quite a commonplace Saccharomyces, which is also 

 always present, and which he did not at first consider to be 

 the ferment, owing to its commonplace characters. In- 

 stances of the simultaneous presence of two or more series 

 of organisms in the same materials or tissues not necessarily 

 connected with the cause of the disease are far more 

 numerous than where the _ disease microbe is the solitary 

 inhabitant. 



Koch has stated in his last paper 2 that amongst the 

 hundred and odd medical men attending the special course 

 to study the choleraic comma-bacilli, one gentleman became 

 affected with ' cholerine ' ; he voided watery stools, and in 

 them the choleraic comma-bacilli were recovered by gelatine 

 plate-cultivation. This Koch considers as proof that the 

 comma-bacilli by careless handling had found access to the 

 intestine of this gentleman, and there multiplied and produced 

 the 'cholerine'. Von Pettenkofer, who was present at this 

 conference, declined to accept this explanation, but per- 

 sisted in saying that this ' cholerine ' might have been 



1 Biologisches Centralblatt, ii. 



2 Zweiie Conferenz zur Erorterung der Cholera/rage, Berlin, May 

 1885. 



M 



