THE MICROBES OF HUMAN DISEASES. 201 



development of the microbe. Bochefontaine also 

 injected the choleraic virus under the skin of his arm, 

 but the operation was only followed by an oedematous 

 redness, localized round the puncture, and .the con- 

 stitutional symptoms were not so marked as those 

 produced by taking the same virus into the digestive 

 canal. 



Ferran's Attempts at Inoculation. This leads us 

 to mention the attempts at inoculation made by 

 Ferran on a large scale in Spain, under the name of 

 anti-cholera vaccinations. 



In 1884, Ferran, a Tortosa physician, was sent by 

 the municipality of Barcelona to study the infectious 

 agent of cholera at Toulon. His preceding studies 

 in micrography pointed him out for this mission. 

 He returned from Toulon, provided with cultures of 

 the comma bacillus, and devoted himself to the 

 study of its life-history. The facts reported by him 

 differ very much from those previously observed, and 

 cannot be accepted without further investigation. 



According to Ferran, the cholera microbe presents 

 a polymorphism which has escaped notice in Koch's 

 investigations, and those of the other micrographists 

 who have observed and cultivated it. When trans- 

 ferred to a sterilized alkaline infusion, the comma 

 bacillus increases in length, forms sinuous filaments, 

 then swells at one extremity until it attains to the 

 volume of a red blood-corpuscle, thus constituting 



an 'oogonium filled with protoplasm. A transparent 

 10 



