2 2 Objects Seen in Cholera Evactiations. [part i. 



time, and finally disposed of as being merely an oil one, when suddenly it is seen to 

 protrude a portion of its substance ; retract it, and while so doing another protrusion 

 becomes visible at some other portion of the little mass, and then, perhaps, it will shift 

 its position, exactly after the manner of an amoeba. 



These are frequently hyaline in a fresh stool, but generally granular ; no trace of 

 nucleus or contractile vesicle can be observed ; sometimes they are very numerous, 

 but when there are other corpuscles in the field which act in a somewhat similar 

 manner, it is impossible to say to which class they belong, unless, indeed, they move 

 across the field like an ordinary amoeba, and not merely content themselves with 

 protruding portions of their substance into the surrounding fluid, as was stated the 

 corpuscles in the last described kind did. I am not in a position to state that these 

 are the " still " and amoeboid conditions of more than one kind of animalcule ; 

 probably they are, but that they are so of one kind, I think I may state pretty 

 definitely ; and, as they are sometimes distinguishable in the still globular condition 

 for a considerable time, they really may have been the bodies seen by Professor 

 Hallier, and mistaken by him for swollen spores ; most frequently, however, they are 

 of short duration. 



The cause of this variableness I am not in a position to state. 



These bodies were noticed very early in the course of the inquiry, and every 

 particular concerning them noted ; but I have to confess that not a few links are 

 wanting in the " life history " of these animalculse, which the following illustrations 

 will but too plainly demonstrate. 



Illustration I. : — 



A pale, straw-coloured, perfectly liquid stool, in which the sediment was very 

 scanty, was obtained from a patient in the cold stage of cholera. The dejections being 

 passed involuntaril}'', numerous little heaps of sarcince were present (Plate XIV, Fig. 

 xlviii), as indeed exist to a greater or less extent in nearly all the cholera evacuations 

 examined, with numerous masses of a granular or jelly-like substance, in which yellow 

 translucent lumps are imbedded, probably of a fatty nature (Fig. xlix 1) ; together 

 with masses of a somewhat similar outline observed to alter in form very slowly, as at 

 2, In some cases a pellicle becomes evident, when the contained jelly-like protoplasm 

 contracts, as at 3, the various forms assumed by which are represented at Fig. 1, 

 with a great number of more or less spherical bodies very like oil globules (Fig. li.) ; 

 some are seen to be flattened out (1), others protruding a vesicle exceedingly slowly ; 

 the body at No. 2 becoming in the course of five minutes to the condition delineated 

 at 3, 4, 5 ; whilst great numbers of a minute animalculae were seen actively moving 

 among them all; sometimes one flagellum is seen a posterior one, at others an 

 anterior one also, both being retractile at will, and another may be darted forth out 

 of any portion of its body. No organized structure can be seen, neither mouth nor 



