IX.] OTHER BACTERIA IN CHOLERA. 17 



and as such is also regarded by Koch and others. Although 

 I do not of course doubt that this bacterium does occur 

 in the contents of the cholera intestine and the choleraic de- 

 jecta, and although there can be no doubt that it possesses 

 those pathogenic characters on guinea-pigs which are stated 

 by von Emmerich and Buchner, yet I cannot for one 

 moment accept it as proved that it has a causal relation to 

 cholera Asiatica. Koch and Brieger maintain that the same 

 bacterium occurs in the normal intestinal contents, and the 

 latter observer and Weisser 1 have proved that a bacterium 

 identical with von Emmerich's in morphological and cultural 

 characters occurs in normal human faeces and other localities, 

 and is possessed of the identical pathogenic properties on 

 guinea-pigs, these animals after inoculation dying from a 

 form of septicaemia. All the difficulties that the comma- 

 bacillus of Koch offers in trying to explain the known facts 

 of cholera are likewise attached to this bacterium of von 

 Emmerich's, and I quite agree with those who say that of 

 the two Koch's comma-bacillus has undoubtedly a stronger 

 claim to be considered as the cholera microbe than von 

 Emmerich's, Of course if it had been confirmed that von 

 Emmerich's bacterium is present in the blood and tissues of 

 acute cholera cases there would have been strong fir zmafaae 

 evidence for its being causally connected with cholera, but 

 this presence in the blood and tissues not having been 

 proved on further examination its claim to be considered as 

 the cholera microbe rests on a very slender basis. 



A commission consisting of Professor C. Roy, Dr. Graham Brown, 

 and Dr. Sherrington of Cambridge, was sent out to Spain in 1885, to 

 decide between the contradictory statements as to the facts concerning 

 the comma-bacilli of Koch. These gentlemen have come to the con- 



1 Zeitschr. f. Hygiene, i. 2. 



