viii.] THE INFECTIVENESS OF CHOLERA. 163 



lower ileum, just above the ileocaecal valve, and about 4 6 

 inches long, was ligatured above and below, care being taken 

 not to include in the ligatures the large vessels. With a 

 Pravaz syringe a droplet of mucus was withdrawn from the 

 interior of the loop, and on examination no comma-bacilli 

 could with certainty be discovered. With another syringe 

 about 2 ccm. of a saturated solution of magnesium sulphate 

 was rhen injected, the loop replaced, and the wound stitched 

 up and dressed antiseptically, the whole operation being 

 done under the spray. Immediately afterwards the animal 

 received subcutaneously one gramme of chloral hydrate 

 dissolved in one to two ccm. of distilled water. This whole 

 experiment was done after the method first employed by 

 Moreau, and repeated by the Committee of the British Medi- 

 cal Association on Cholera. 1 Our animal was killed after 

 48 hours ; on post-mortem examination the ligatured loop was 

 found much injected, its cavity filled with and distended by 

 mucus, containing streaks of blood and numerous flakes. 

 On microscopic examination these flakes contained, besides 

 amorphous mucus and detached epithelial cells, longer or 

 shorter straight thickish bacilli, single or in dumb-bells ; 

 these were more or less pointed at the extremities, and many 

 of them included an oval bright spore. There were present 

 numerous comma-bacilli, some single, others in dumb-bells, 

 either S~shaped or with the curve in the same direction, i.e. 

 like the outline of a bird on the wing ; many were spirals of 

 three or four turns. In some places these comma-bacilli 

 were so numerous and crowded together that the material 

 looked almost like a pure cultivation of them (see Fig. 38). 

 On microscopic comparison it was found that they were of 

 the same character as the choleraic comma- bacilli, except 



1 See the reprint of the Report of the Committee in the Practitioner, 

 1884. 



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