SPIRILLUM OF ASIATIC CHOLERA. 349 



As a result of experiments performed in the Imperial 

 Health Bureau, at Berlin, it was found that the bodies 

 of guinea-pigs that had died of cholera induced by 

 Koch's method of inoculation contained no living cholera 

 spirilla when exhumed after having been buried for 

 nineteen days in wooden boxes, or for twelve days in 

 zinc boxes. In a few that had been buried in moist 

 earth, without having been encased in boxes, when ex- 

 humed after two or three months, the results of exami- 

 nations for cholera spirilla were likewise negative. 



Kitasato, 1 in his experiments with the cholera organ- 

 ism, found that when mixed with the intestinal evacua- 

 tions of human beings under ordinary conditions, they 

 lost their vitality in from a day and a half to three 

 days. If the evacuations were sterilized before the cul- 

 tures were mixed with them, the organisms retained their 

 vitality up to from twenty to twenty-five days. He was 

 unable to come to any definite conclusion as to the cause 

 of these phenomena. 



It was demonstrated by Hesse 2 and by Celli 3 that 

 many substances commonly employed as food stuffs offer 

 a favorable nidus upon which the cholera organism may 

 develop. In his experiments upon its behavior in milk, 

 Kitasato 4 found that at a temperature of 36 C. the 

 cholera spirillum developed very rapidly during the first 

 three or four hours, and outnumbered the other organ- 

 isms commonly found in milk. They then diminished 

 in number from hour to hour as the acidity of the milk 

 increased, until finally their vitality was lost; at the 



1 Zeitschrift fur Hygiene, Bd. v. p. 487. 



2 Ibid., Bd. v. p. 527. 



3 Bolletino della R. Accad. Med. di Roma, 1888. 

 * Zeitschrift f. Hygiene, Bd. v. p. 491. 



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