74 THE BACTERIA IN ASIATIC CHOLERA. [CH. 



bacilli, and described on a former page. Growing in 

 nutrient gelatine they do not liquefy the material, and the 

 channel of inoculation after several days' growth is occupied 

 by streaks of granules and droplets of a whitish appearance. 



Experiments were made with cultures of these small bacilli on 

 monkeys, rabbits, dogs, and cats, by feeding, by intravascular 

 and subcutaneous injection, and by introducing them directly 

 into the small intestine. But no result was produced and 

 no result was to be expected, since the experiments with the 

 mucus-flakes taken directly from the ileum of acute cholera 

 cases mentioned on a former page proved without result. 



Von Emmerich stated that in cases of cholera examined 

 by him in the epidemic in Naples in 1884, he found a ba- 

 cillus which is constantly present in the dejecta, in the tissue 

 of the intestine, liver, spleen, lymphatic glands, and blood. 

 This bacillus was found to be virulent when inoculated from 

 cultivations into guinea-pigs, producing death in a day or 

 two with choleraic symptoms. In his later researches carried 

 on with Buchner in Palermo in 1885. he corrected some 

 of his original statements in so far that the presence of this 

 "cholera-bacillus" in the blood and tissues was not confirmed. 

 But its constant presence in the stools and intestinal contents 

 of acute cholera cases and in the mucus of the bronchial 

 tubes, as also its virulently poisonous action on guinea-pigs, 

 was maintained by these observers. I first thought that von 

 Emmerich's bacillus was the same as the minute straight 

 bacillus described by me, but from further more detailed 

 description and from information given me by my friend Dr. 

 Shakespeare of Philadelphia, who had seen and possessed 

 specimens of von Emmerich's bacillus, it is clear that this 

 latter is much larger and thicker than the minute straight 

 bacillus mentioned by me. At the same time von Emmer- 

 ich's bacillus appears more like a species of Bacterium termo^ 



