i?2 THE BACTERIA IN ASIATIC CHOLERA. [CH. 



and penetrate by active growth into them, finding in their 

 protoplasm a good soil. 



A very careful examination of fine microscopic sections of 

 different parts of the intestine, well-preserved and well-stained 

 in the different aniline dyes, was made in order to trace, if 

 possible, these small bacilli, isolated or enclosed in cells, from 

 the lymphatic tissues of the mucous membrane outwards, 

 but all in vain. No trace of them could be found in the 

 lymph-corpuscles or any other part of the mucous membrane 

 either in the stomach, intestine, mesenteric glands, blood, or 

 any other tissue. 



On the whole, then, although these bacilli looked very 

 promising at first as regards their connection with the dis- 

 ease, they had nevertheless to be abandoned, and had to be 

 regarded like the comma-bacilli, as something extraneous, 

 present only in tissues practically dead in the cavity of the 

 alimentary canal. But if any one wishes to urge that these 

 small bacilli are probably connected with the disease, there 

 would exist for such a view at least as much, if not more, 

 justification than for Koch's comma-bacillus, since these 

 small bacilli are found in some elements derived from the 

 tissue of the intestine (the comma-bacilli are not), and are 

 always present in the mucus-flakes and in the intestinal 

 contents, at any rate in acute cases, and if post-mortem 

 examination be made soon enough, as often and as 

 numerously as the comma-bacilli. In the watery vomit, 

 when copious, of acute cases, these small bacilli are generally 

 present, chiefly as isolated individuals or in small groups. 



And in the same way, one might further urge that they are 

 quite capable of forming some kind of chemical ferment, 

 which, when absorbed, produces the disease. All this could 

 be said, with the same justification, of these small bacilli as 

 Koch has said it of the comma-bacilli, and such a theory 



