8o Researches Regarding Cholera : The Blood. [part 1. 



during our examinations of the preparation of blood here referred to ; and it so 

 happens that whereas six samples of the particular blood alluded to were under 

 observation, only in the two specimens, to which a solution of acetate of potash had 

 been added, did the sarcinae appear. We have recorded another case as being of 

 a questionable nature, the bodies observed having appeared to us to be more like 

 crystals which had assumed a sarcinoid arrangement : indeed, from what we have 

 observed of sarcinae under other circumstances also, we incline strongly to the opinion 

 that they are crystalline rather than organised bodies. 



Having in our own minds become perfectly satisfied that none of the organisms 

 above alluded to existed in the blood in a state of health, or in cholera, and having 

 also observed that when ordinary blood was inoculated with monads or bacteria, their 

 multiplication and activity usually ceased in the course of two or three days, unless 

 fresh material were added, we were still anxious to ascertain whether they would in- 

 crease in a more marked degree, and whether their period of activity would be prolonged 

 by being introduced into the circulation. With the view of attempting to clear up 

 this matter, decomposing solutions swarming with monads, bacteria and vibriones 

 were injected into the veins of dogs, a sample of the blood being in most instances 

 previously examined for the sake of comparison, and the animals slaughtered at periods 

 varying from a few minutes to a week after the operations. Our note book contains 

 a record of forty-nine such experiments which we thus briefly epitomise : — 



It will be seen from the table on page 79 that the minute organisms, with which 

 decomposing organic solutions swarm, do not multiply on being introduced into the blood 

 of healthy or diseased animals ; for it must be borne in mind that the blood of several of 

 the dogs experimented upon had, on a previous occasion, or even on two occasions, been 

 contaminated in a similar manner, and could consequently scarcely be designated healthy. 



Indeed, not only is it shown that the organisms under consideration cease to 

 multiply under such circumstances as these, but that they actually diminish in 

 number every hour they remain in the system, and eventually disappear altogether. 



Out of twelve preparations of blood obtained from animals within six hours after 

 the introduction of putrefying matter into their veins, active monads and bacteria 

 were present in seven of them, or at the rate of about 58 per cent. ; and out of thirty 

 preparations examined, under similar circumstances within twenty-four hours, they 

 were distinctly recognized in fourteen, or something under 47 per cent. ; whereas, in 

 nineteen specimens of blood derived from animals that had been inoculated in this 

 manner from two to seven days previously, these bodies could only be detected in 

 two of them, or only at the rate of about 10^ per cent., just 6 per cent, higher than 

 was observed to be the case in healthy blood, which we have attributed to accidental 

 circumstances. 



It may be noted that in four of the dogs whose blood had been infected on two 

 occcasions each, the blood, when examined within four, five and six days of the first 

 infection, did not present a trace of these organisms. 



