l62 



Researches Regarding Cholera : the Blood. 



[part 1. 



some cases, is, of course, no evidence that they always do so, or that they cannot occur 

 during life and give rise to injurious or fatal results ; but the fact is one which 

 requires to be prominently brought forward, and to be carefully borne in mind in 

 the investigation of all such obscure etiological subjects. 



In our former report we drew special attention to these phenomena and gave a 

 minute description with figures of the objects referred to ; but as we have since, on 

 more than one occasion, observed statements to the effect that organisms (beyond 

 any reasonable doubt identical in their nature with these) had been detected after 

 death in this or in that disease, and conclusions drawn as to the significance of their 

 presence which are more conducive to the retardation than to the advance of our 

 knowledge of the true pathology of these diseases, we again give a woodcut of the 

 principal forms presented by these 'post-nnoTte'm developments, as seen under a ^^ of 

 an inch immersion objective. 



It is difficult to give these bodies one name which shall embrace all the forms. 



Fig. 4. X loOO. 



Organisms found in the tissues of liealthy animals a few hours after death. 



Some are long and jointed, extending in a few cases almost across the field of the 

 microscope, reminding us of the Bacillus subtilis figured in Cohn's " Memoir on 

 Bacteria ; " * others are more like Vibrio rugula and Vibrio serpens : whilst intermixed 

 are innumerable bacteria of various forms and sizes ; some with vacuoles at one end, 

 others showing them at both ends or towards the middle, with here and there 

 circular cells containing oily molecules not unlike Cohn's Saccharomyces glutinis in 

 appearance. After being kept for a day or two, the activity of the vibriones, etc., 

 diminishes or ceases altogether, and eventually the staves break up into oil-like beads 

 held together by a soft, hyaline material. 



We have frequently found these in the blood and in all the organs of the body 

 of healthy animals within twelve hours after death, and considerably sooner when the 

 temperature was unusually high. On the last occasion when we undertook the 



* Vide Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, Vol. XIII, new Series, 187.3, page 15(5. 



