128 MICRO-ORGANISMS AND DISEASE. [CH. xi. 



the disease. Considering the state of the intestine in tlr s disease, the presence of 

 the bacilli, however peculiar, in its wall is in itself not convincing proof of their 

 specific nature. Considering also that animals are as yet found insusceptible to 

 cholera, artificial cultivations of these bacilli, successfully accomplished by 

 Koch, cannot be tested. 



From the artificial cultivations of these comma-shaped bacilli, Koch learned 

 that it is necessary that the nourishing medium should have an alkaline reac- 

 tion, and that the bacilli are easily killed by drying. Koch found these 

 comma-shaped bacilli in linen soiled with the cholera dejecta, also in the water 

 of a tank that had produced cholera in several people who had partaken of it. 

 As soon as the bacilli disappeared from this water cholera cases ceased. 



My friend Mr. A. Lingtird has placed at my disposal sections through the 

 human intestine from cases of dysentery ; there ore seen in the superficial parts 

 of the necrosed mucous membrane large numbers of putrefactive bacilli. In 



Fro. 90. FROM: A SECTION THUOUC.H THE Mucous MEMBRANE OF TEE INTESTINE 

 OF A PATIENT DEAD OF DYSENTERY. 



A number of blood discs (extravasated into the tissue of the mucous membrane} 



and between them long thin bacilli. 

 Magnifying power 700. (Stained with methyl-blue. 



some cnses, however, in the depth of the tissue thore are found, amongst the 

 extravasated blood-corpuscles, numbers of very fine, long, straight, or more 

 commonly curved, bacilli and bacillus filaments ; some are distinctly made 

 vp of a chain of long bacilli. They stain well and conspicuously in methyl- 

 blue. 



