130 Researches Regarding Cholera: The Blood. [part I. 



to it. In no instance was any tendency to special affection of tlie intestinal glands 

 observed. The stomach and the large intestine have in nearly all the cases seemed 

 to us to be quite healthy. 



In connection with these observations on the disorganization which the small 

 intestine is subject to, when putrefying matters are injected into the blood, it may 

 be remarked that on three occasions we observed a great number of vibriones or 

 dscillatoria-like filaments, embedded in the mucus which lined the intestine after the 

 substance which was free and filling the lumen of the gut had been wiped away. 

 These may have existed in more numerous instances, and been overlooked ; still it 

 may seem strange that they all three occurred in dogs into whose veins the dejection 

 from a very mild or even questionable case of cholera, above referred to, as having 

 proved so fatal, had been injected. We have deemed these occurrences as worthy of 

 attention, more especially when taken in connection with the cases of mycosis 

 intestinalis, which, we understand, are prominently alluded to by Professor Parkes in 

 his Annual Review of Hygiene in the recently issued Report of the Army Medical 

 Department, which has however not yet reached Calcutta. We shall certainly con- 

 tinue to watch closely for any organisms of the kind in the intestinal canal of man and 

 of animals. It will be seen that similar actively moving vibriones were detected in 

 the mesenteric glands, but not in the blood. 



Whilst tabulating the results of the experiments recorded, we were somewhat 

 surprised to observe that when a dog had once recovered from the effects of an 

 operation, succeeding operations had not, in a single instance, proved fatal to it, no 

 matter whether the material introduced into its veins consisted of choleraic or non- 

 choleraic, or of alternate doses of these. One of these animals, a healthy but by no 

 means a very large dog, was subjected to four experiments, a vein in each limb 

 having been injected and tied, without result ; another was made use of on three 

 occasions in a similar way, and ten on two occasions, all recovering perfectly. This 

 appears to us to argue very strongly in favour of a predisposition, on the part of animals 

 at all events, to be affected by septic influences. 



There were comparatively very few instances in which it could be distinctly noted 

 that marked embolism had occurred ; not more than six in sixty-seven experiments. 

 All the dogs, however, were not killed and examined, consequently secondary diseases 

 may have become developed in them afterwards. 



4. We have recorded twelve experiments on the effect of injecting the peritoneal 

 cavity with solutions of organic materials of a similar nature to those adopted in the 

 experiments just referred to. Four consisted of choleraic material, three of ordinary 

 alvine discharge, one of a decomposing solution of beef, and four of peritonitic fluid 

 recent and decomposed. Deaths only occurred in three cases, namely, two after the 

 introduction of fluid which had just been obtained from the peritoneal cavity of 

 another dog, and one after the introduction of a solution of decomposing ordinary 

 alvine discharge, the remainder were all killed within twenty-four hours of the 



