74 Researches Regarding Cholera : The Blood. [part i. 



characteristic cells of the discharges, or by that of a more or less pronounced pinkish 

 and sanguineous tinge of the fluids, with the subsequent appearance of blood crystals 

 in them. Now if, as observation has proved, the bioplasts contained in the blood are 

 capable of such activity and multiplication when removed from the body, and with 

 quite abnormal surroundings, it is surely fair to allow them an equal, if not superior, 

 capacity when exuded on the interior surface of the intestines. 



Such bioplasts, in passing through the various changes described above, will come 

 to present every modification of appearance and characters presented by those found in 

 the discharges. In their earlier stages they will correspond with the freely motile 

 amoebae of the evacuations ; when rather older they lose their freedom of motion and 

 show mere feeble changes of form, ultimately becoming motionless and pus-like or 

 rather exudation-like cells, such as are observed in the flakes of lymph in peritonitic 

 and similar effusions, and , such cells we know to form the great bulk of those present 

 in perfectly recent choleraic dejections. 



Whilst in this condition it has been already mentioned that they frequently show 

 one or more distinct nuclear vacuoles in their interior, and they are then identical 

 in aspect with the large mother-cells containing bioplast-masses, previously described 

 in connection with the subject of the evacuations. 



There is one class of bodies in the evacuations, the nature of which has hitherto 

 been peculiarly puzzling and obscure, namely, that of flattened, whitish or pale-yellowish 

 hyaline cells showing no evident structure or contents, but the observations on the 

 changes occurring in the bioplasts of the blood explain the nature of these also, for 

 the empty capsules persisting after the escape of the molecular contents of the pus- 

 like cells, are exactly similar to the hyaline bodies of the evacuations, and unless the 

 actual steps in their formation had been followed, their nature would have been as 

 obscure as that of the latter cells has till now remained. Hyaline vesicles, some- 

 what resembling these, are, more or less, generally found in all intestinal discharges, 

 and are probably the result of endosmotic processes acting on the epithelial cells, as 

 was long ago pointed out by Heidenhain and Briicke in connection with appearances 

 observed in healthy epithelium ; they may occasionally be seen closely attached to the 

 cells in those very exceptional cases in which epithelium can be detected in choleraic 

 discharges, as well as very frequently in connection with the loose epithelium found 

 in the intestines after death, as figured and described in the last report.* 



These observations on the blood, especially when taken in connection with the 

 light which they throw on the nature of the cells and bioplasts of the evacuations, do 

 not tend to indicate the presence of a microscopically demonstrable morbid poison in 

 either medium, they merely show that the escape of materials from the blood is 

 sufficient to account for the presence of the most remarkable and constant microscopic 

 features in the evacuations. 



* Seventh Annual Report ot the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India : Appendix B, 

 Plate III. 



