SPIEILLUM CHOLER.E ASIATICS. 439 



gradually develops, the respirations become weak and 

 slow, and death occurs with symptoms of severe 

 collapse and with marked coldness, more especially of 

 the head and extremities. On post-mortem examination 

 the small intestine is seen to be much reddened, and 

 filled with a watery colourless fluid containing flakes ; 

 the stomach and caecum also contain a large quantity 

 of fluid, and not, as is normally the case, solid masses. 

 The contents of the small intestine are found in these 

 cases, both by microscopic examination and by cultiva- 

 tion, to contain almost a pure cultivation of comma 

 bacilli. Infective experiments of this kind were made 

 by Koch on about 100 guinea-pigs. He also succeeded 

 in setting up the same fatal disease by employing, 

 instead of cholera cultivations, the intestinal contents 

 of an animal which had been infected and bad died. 



The force of these experiments is somewhat diminished Control 

 by the observation made by Koch that some other species expei 

 of bacteria, as, for example, the vibriones which morpho- 

 logically resemble the comma bacilli, and were isolated 

 by Finkler, Deneke, and Miller, when introduced into 

 the small intestine in the same way at times set up 

 a fatal disease ; as a matter of fact, however, only 12 out 

 of 51 animals infected with these bacteria died, while in 

 the experiments with cholera bacteria the mortality was 

 almost 90 per cent., and when the dose was larger all 

 the animals were killed. Employed in the same manner 

 the anthrax bacilli and the bacteria isolated by Brieger, 

 as well as a number of other organisms, showed a distinct 

 pathogenic action, while in the case of a large number of 

 other species, for example the pyogenic cocci, the bacilli 

 of rabbit septicaemia and of chicken cholera, &c., no bad 

 effect resulted. The opium could be almost completely 

 replaced by alcohol ; other substances gave less satis- 

 factory results. 



In considering how far the attempts made in these experi- Differences 

 ments to set up a disease similar to human, cholera have been between he 

 -successful, it is necessary to bear in mind that in any case in perimentaih 

 guinea-pigs, which seem to be the most susceptible animals, produced and 



vomiting and profuse diarrhoea are very seldom or never "^man 



