i;8 THE BACTERIA IN ASIATIC CHOLERA. [CH. 



cavity, the comma-bacilli are unable to multiply in the 

 intestine, and therefore are unable to produce a fatal 

 result. 



But while I have made the necessary control experiments 

 which Messrs. Macleod and Milles charge me with having 

 omitted, I do not find anywhere in Messrs. Macleod and 

 Milles's paper .a reference to control experiments of their 

 own. Amongst the numerous experiments made by these 

 gentlemen, some partly in repetition of Koch's, partly of Van 

 Ermengem's experiments, I do not find any experiments to 

 show that my contention is wrong. Surely if any one 

 maintains, as they do on p. 177, 3, that "the means used 

 to introduce the comma-bacillus into, and those used to 

 lessen the peristalsis of the small intestine of the guinea-pig, 

 cannot be regarded as causing appearances like those ot 

 Asiatic cholera, or as causing the death of the animal, "- 

 we should require proof by control experiment, i.e. we 

 should require proof that by inducing narcosis otherwise 

 than by intraperitoneal injection of opium tincture we 

 nevertheless obtain the same positive . results. But such 

 control experiments do not seem to have been made by 

 them. 



Nor do I find anywhere in Messrs. Macleod and Milles's 

 paper a reference to the important experiments made on 

 a large scale by Finkler with Finkler's comma-bacillus, and 

 described in a former chapter (p. 137). As has been stated, 

 Finkler experimenting on guinea-pigs with cultures of his 

 comma-bacillus after Koch's method produced results 

 identical with those produced by Koch's comma-bacillus. 

 I think this proves conclusively that the action of the 

 choleraic comma-bacillus thus experimented with in the 

 guinea-pig cannot possibly be said to be identical with 

 cholera-asiatica ; for if so, then both Finkler's and Koch's 



