128 Researches Regarding Cholera. ^part l 



operated upon, or were so in another class of experiments subsequently under- 

 taken. 



In these thirty-two experiments sixteen deaths occurred : thirteen evidently from 

 the direct action of the putrefying material exerted through or upon the blood ; 

 two apparently from shock, and one dog was killed owing to erysipelatous inflamma- 

 tion of a severe kind attacking the wound. These are consequently left out of the 

 calculation. The mortality, therefore, resulting from the direct introduction of 

 choleraic dejections in quantities varying from two to six drachms may be set down 

 as amounting to about 43 per cent. 



We much regret that the experiments on perfectly fresh choleraic material 

 are not more numerous, a defect which we trust to remedy very shortly. The 

 difficulty has been to procure a suitable animal when an opportunity occurred for 

 resorting to the experiment — to obtain a dog as it is to obtain anything else at the 

 moment wanted being proverbially uncertain. 



With this material, one and two days old, five experiments were performed, but 

 all the dogs recovered ; whereas when the material used had been kept for three days, 

 three out of four dogs experimented upon died within from three to six hours, and 

 with well-marked lesions in each of them w^hich will be referred to further on. It so 

 happens that in all four of these experiments the same material was used ; it was 

 obtained from a questionable case of cholera, and was by no means so offensive to the 

 smell as is generally the case with choleraic dejecta after being kept so long. There 

 are eleven cases recorded in which the choleraic material injected was four days old ; 

 of these, six died, or about 54 per cent. In one of the animals which did not die, 

 but was slaughtered, it was found that well-marked intestinal lesions existed. Twelve 

 experiments are likewise cited in which the material used varied from six to twenty- 

 two days old. Four of the dogs died from causes reasonably attributable to the 

 poisonous action of the material introduced, whereas two (puppies) died of shock. 



2. Of the seven cases in w^hich the choleraic material injected into the veins 

 had been more or less diluted with water, two died, which will be equal to about 

 35 per cent., this being considerably lower than the mortality when the undiluted 

 material was resorted to. The -post-mortem, appearances were precisely analogous in both 

 instances, but these will be referred to more at length hereafter. 



3. There were twenty -one experiments on the introduction of solutions of ordinary 

 alvine discharges carried out; nine of the animals died, three of these deaths we 

 attribute to shock, which for the sake of uniformity we also leave out of the calcula- 

 tion, thus leaving six deaths, or a mortality a little over 33 per cent., about 2 per 

 cent, less than the mortality from the injection of the diluted choleraic material. 



Four experiments are cited in which solution of fowl's blood, filtered and 

 unfiltered, fresh and decomposed, had been introduced into the circulation without 

 producing the slightest result; and one rather remarkable case is given in which 

 fluid obtained from the abdominal cavity of a dog, in whom extreme peritonitis had 



