PATHOGENIC SPIRILLA. 567 



curred. Sanarelli believes that these vibrios must have had a common ori- 

 ginfrom the dejecta of cholera patients. Fischer (1894) has described a 

 number of vibrios from sea-water which are distinguished from the cholera 

 vibrio especially by a preference for media containing sea- water. Finally, 

 the vibrios found in water, referred to by Koch (' Ueber den augenblicklichen 

 Stand der Cholera-diagnose,' Zeitschr. fur Hygiene, Bd. xiv., page 319), 

 belong here. 



"Quite different from these is a second group of vibrios which in their in- 

 vestigation offered great and often almost insuperable difficulties for the 

 differential diagnosis. Here, first of all, is the Vibrio Berolinensis, found by 

 Neisser in August, 1893, and described by Rubner, Neisser, and Giinther. 

 This was isolated from water which had previously contained cholera vibrios, 

 for which reason Dunbar considers it not impossible that this is a genuine 

 cholera vibrio, somewhat changed perhaps by long-continued development 

 in water. Neither in its morphology nor in its behavior in gelatin stick cul- 

 tures, in milk and other media, could it be distinguished from the genuine 

 comma bacillus ; the indol reaction and pathogenic action upon guinea-pigs 

 were the same ; on the contrary, a differentiation was easily made in gelatin 

 plate cultures. At the end of twenty -four hours it formed small, spherical, 

 finely granular colonies, which at the end of forty-eight hours were not yet 

 visible to the naked eye. Heider (1893) isolated from the water of the Donau 

 canal a vibrio which he called Vibrio Danubicus. This resembles the chol- 

 era vibrio fully in its morphology. As a distinguishing character it was 

 found that this vibrio, in thinly planted plates, forms flat, superficial colo- 

 nies having irregularly rounded margins and other slight differences ; also 

 the pathogenic action upon mice inoculated subcutaneously, and the ease with 

 which guinea-pigs are infected by way of the respiratory passages. It is 

 worthy of note that the day after the sample was taken a man was taken sick 

 with cholera who had worked on the Donau the day before on the principal 

 stream at a place far below the junction of the canal. Dunbar (1893) found 

 vibrios in the Elbe, in the Rhine, in the Pegnitz, and in the Amstel at Amster- 

 dam. These presented no decided characters by which he was able to differ- 

 entiate them from the cholera vibrio. The most careful comparative investi- 

 gations did not lead to the discovery of any points of difference which had 

 not already been observed in genuine cholera cultures. Everything, there- 

 fore, indicated that these were genuine cholera bacilli, especially as these 

 vibrios disappeared from the rivers when cholera ceased to prevail. It was 

 first possible through an observation of Kutscher's to differentiate a portion 

 of these water bacteria, and certain vibrios isolated from the discharges of 

 persons suspected of having cholera from cultures of the cholera spirillum. 

 In the presence of oxygen, at a suitable temperature, they give off a greenish- 

 white phosphorescence. 



' 'As phosphorescence has never been observed in undoubted cholera cul- 

 tures, we can assert with tolerable certainty that such phosphorescent vibrios 

 are not genuine cholera bacteria. But as this phosphorescent property was 

 inconstant in thirty-eight out of sixty-eight cultures, Dunbar believes that 

 some reserve must be exercised in accepting this as evidence that these are 

 not genuine cholera vibrios. Maassen (1894) gives as a further distinguishing 

 character of these phosphorescent vibrios the fact that they form a strong, 

 usually wrinkled pellicle in bouillon, of proper alkalinity, containing gly- 

 cerin or carbohydrates (cane sugar, lactose) ; also that in such media the 

 formation of indol and a subsequent return to an alkaline reaction may be 

 observed. 



" As already stated, Sanarelli isolated from Seine water a considerable 

 number of vibrios, and among them four viz. : one from St. Cloud, Point- 

 du-Jour, Gennevilliers No. 5, and Versailles (Seine), which after twenty-four 

 hours gave a distinct indol reaction and were more or less pathogenic for 

 guinea-pigs (the one from St. Cloud was also pathogenic for pigeons}. Ivan- 

 off (1893) describes a vibrio which he isolated from the faeces of a patient with 



