476 SPIRILLUM FINKLER AND PRIOR. 



these organisms by cultivation (a plan that is necessary 

 in order to render their identity certain) in the case of 

 dejecta from cholera nostras which had been kept for a 

 long time, and which had undergone putrefaction. 

 Other authors have, however, sought in vain for 

 Finkler's bacilli in a large number of cases of cholera 

 nostras. Thus Koch examined a considerable number 

 of cases, and among them several which ended fatally, 

 with negative results ; and investigations by Ermengem, 

 Watson Cheyne, Biedert, and others, have in like manner 

 yielded negative results. 



On the other hand, Miller has found curved bacilli in 

 a hollow tooth, and these must be looked on as identical 

 with Finkler's, from their microscopic characters, and 

 their behaviour on cultivation and on animals; and 

 Kuisl* has obtained Finkler's spirilla in a nutrient 

 solution containing peptone, meat infusion, and 2 per 

 cent, of potash soap, from the contents of the caecum of 

 a patient who had committed suicide. 



Hence from the mode of distribution of these bacilli 

 we cannot find any evidence of pathogenic properties, 

 nor any relation to cholera nostras, and they must 

 therefore be reckoned among the saprophytes till better 

 evidence of their pathogenic character has been fur- 

 nished. 



From Finkler and Prior's first publications, in which they 

 held that their bacilli were identical with Koch's comma 

 bacilli, it is evident that they made their experiments at that 

 time in complete ignorance of the usual and necessary methods 

 of cultivating and isolating bacteria ; and in their paper 

 they also speak of a mode of development of their bacilli in 

 which "alternation of generation," "mother cells" which 

 burst at a later period, " spore bearers," &c., play a part, 

 and which has no analogy in the developmental history of 

 other bacteria. In their last communication,t it is true, 

 these authors give a very detailed description of Koch's 

 method of investigation, with which they have apparently 

 become acquainted subsequently; but they attempt to bolster 

 up their former standpoint with only slight modifications, and 



* Munch, iirztl. Intelligenzbl, 1885, 36. 



f Centralblf. allg. Ges, Ergfinzungshefte, vol. i., Parts 5 and 6. 



