MICROSPIRA COMMA. 485 



influence of the gastric juice, a pathological condition 

 closely simulating cholera as it occurs in man could be 

 produced. For this purpose the common bile-duct was 

 ligated, after which the cultures were injected directly 

 into the duodenum. Such interference with the flow 

 of bile lessens intestinal peristalsis, and thus permits 

 development of the organisms at the point at which 

 they are deposited that is, the portion of the intestine 

 having an alkaline reaction and beyond the influence of 

 the acid stomach-juice. 



By this method Nicati and Rietsch, Van Ermengem, 1 

 Koch, 2 and others were enabled to produce in the ani- 

 mals upon which they operated a condition that was, if 

 not identical, at all events very similar pathologically 

 to that seen in the intestines of subjects dead of the 

 disease. 



At a subsequent conference held in Berlin in 1885 

 Koch 3 described the following method, by means of 

 which he had been able to obtain a much greater de- 

 gree of constancy in all his efforts to produce cholera in 

 lower animals : bearing in mind the point made by 

 Nicati and Rietsch as to the effect produced by the acid 

 reaction of the gastric juice, this reaction was first to be 

 neutralized by injecting through a soft catheter passed 

 down the oesophagus into the stomach 5 c.c. of a 5 per 

 cent, solution of sodium carbonate. Ten or fifteen min- 

 utes later this was to be followed by the injection into 

 the stomach (also through a soft catheter) of 1 c.c. of a 

 bouillon culture of microspira comma. For the pur- 



1 Recherches sur le Microbe dn Cholera Asiatique. Paris-Bruxelles, 

 1885. Bull, de 1'Acad. roy. de Med. de Belgique, xviii., 3e ser. 



2 Loc. cit. s Ibid., 1885. 



