MICROSPIRA METCHNIKOVI 547 



broken up in about one cubic centimeter of physiological 

 salt solution, and the suspension thus made injected by 

 means of a hypodermic syringe directly into the peritoneal 

 cavity of a guinea-pig of about 350 to 400 grams weight. 

 For larger animals more material is used. If the material 

 injected is from a fresh culture of the cholera organism, toxic 

 symptoms at once appear; these have their most pronounced 

 expression in depression of temperature, and if one follows 

 this decline in temperature from time to time with the 

 thermometer it will be seen to be gradual and continuous 

 from the time of injection to the death of the animal 

 (Pfeiffer 1 ), which occurs in from eighteen to twenty-four 

 hours after the operation. 



MICROSPIRA METCHNIKOVT (GAMALEIA), MIGULA, 1900. 



SYNONYM: Vibrio Metchnikovi. Gamaleia, 1888. 



A spirillum that simulates very closely the comma bacillus 

 of cholera in its morphological and cultural peculiarities, 

 but which is still easily distinguished from it, is that de- 

 scribed by Gamaleia 2 under the name of microspira Metch- 

 nikovi. It was found postmortem in a number of fowls that 

 had died in the poultry-market of Odessa, and the experi- 

 ments of the discoverer led him to believe that it was 

 related etiologically to the gastro-enteritis from which the 

 chickens had been suffering. 



Morphologically it appears as short, curved rods and as 

 longer, spiral-like filaments. It is usually thicker than 

 Koch's microspira and is at times much longer, while again 

 it is seen to be shorter. It is usually more distinctly curved 

 than the " comma bacillus." (Fig. 92.) 



1 Loc. cit. 2 Annales de 1'Institut Pasteur, 1888, tome ii, pp. 482, 552. 



