1 50 Researches Regarding Cholera : the Blood. [part i- 



small clot occupying the centre of the preparation. The red corpuscles were well 

 preserved and were irregularly massed together. White corpuscles were present in 

 extreme abundance, their numbers being so great as to cause the formation of a 

 white fringe along the edge of the clot visible to the naked eye, whilst under the 

 microscope very many fields were entirely occupied by masses of them. Very few of 

 the corpuscles now retained any movement or showed any changes in form, and 

 the majority were circular, finely molecular, and contained a variable number of refringent 

 granules. Twenty-four hours later — forty-six from the date at which they were obtained 

 — but little change had occurred in either specimen. The white corpuscles had become 

 more or less distinctly vacuolated and all movement had ceased ; the red corpuscles 

 were well preserved and the serum was abundant, quite clear and free of any traces of 

 bacteria or vibriones. The preparations were examined at intervals. Five days 

 after the last examination the changes in the leucocytes had advanced considerably, 

 increased vacuolation being visible in some, whilst in others the granular mass of 

 the bioplast protruded more or less from one or other side of a large clear vacuole ; in 

 some the two bodies were almost entirely separate, whilst in others total separation 

 had been completed and the granular mass exhibited various stages of disintegration — a 

 process which resulted in the appearance of free granules and molecules and small 

 patches of such particles throughout the serum. 



After this, although the preparations were retained under observation for a month 

 longer, the only further changes observed in them were increasing disintegration of 

 the white corpuscles, loss of distinctness in the outlines of the red corpuscles, and 

 a change of their colour to a bright rosy hue, accompanied by a certain amount of 

 staining of the serum. The preparation remained fluid throughout the entire period 

 of observation, but no development of any unequivocal bacteria or vibriones ever 

 occurred. There was of course ultimately a generally-ditFused sprinkling of granules and 

 molecules derived from the breaking-up of the leucocytes, but neither by form, growth, 

 nor motion did they show themselves to be truly bacterial in their nature. 



This case presented almost all the characteristic features of choleraic blood, the 

 only one which was not observed being the swarming movement of the contents of 

 the white corpuscles ; but as the preparations, after the first day or two, were only 

 examined at intervals, the phenomenon was very probably present, although the precise 

 time of its occurrence did not coincide with that at which any examination took 

 place. 



As in all our previous examinations not the faintest trace of evidence presented 

 itself in favour of the presence of any bacteria or other foreign organisms or germs 

 in the blood in cholera — all the phenomena observed were ascribable to alterations, 

 relative or absolute, in the normal elements of the blood, not to the presence of any 

 new or extraneous bodies of such nature as to be detected by microscopical research. 



We have now examined numerous specimens of blood derived from cases of every 

 degree of severity and at every stage of the disease during life and shortly after death, 



