PART I.] 



General Summary of Experimental Results. 



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recently been induced, and which might be supposed to be highly noxious, produced 

 no appreciable effect; all the organs when examined twenty-four hours after the 

 operation were perfectly healthy. 



A Table showing the number of experiments with solutions of norm^al 

 alvine discharges, the mortality, and the principal lesions induced 

 by their introduction into the veins of dogs. 



In carefully looking over the account of the post-mortem lesions which occurred 

 in the three preceding classes of experiments, we are struck with the almost constant 

 presence of intestinal complications, varying from more or less intense congestion of 

 the villi and intestinal glands to complete disorganization of the greater portion of the 

 mucous membrane of the small intestine, its epithelial lining becoming completely 

 detached. 



With respect to the portion of intestine thus affected, it will be observed that 

 the lesions have been limited to the small intestine and, in the generality of cases, to 

 its whole course from the duodenum downwards, except for a distance of from one 

 to two feet above the ileo-coecal valve, a portion which in almost every instance has 

 escaped being materially affected. We are totally unable to account for the cause of 

 this exemption, and have tried in vain to reconcile the phenomenon with any known 

 anatomical peculiarities of this part of the gut. We were the more surprised, as we 

 had previously observed, at the autopsies of cholera patients — a subject which we, 

 however, for the present postpone — that it was just this very portion which seemed 

 to show the most marked tendency towards the congestions which every now and then 

 are observed to be present in this disease. Future observation may modify this 

 impression, but we venture to go out of our way a little in order to draw attention 



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