i8o 



Researches Regarding Cholera : the Blood. 



[part I. 



know, the number might have been unlimited had we at that time had a sufficient 

 supply of animals to have carried on the observation without interruption. 



In three others, out of the seven, we were unable to transfer the influence of the 

 septic matter (contained in the decomposing substance resorted to in the first instance) 

 to excite inflammation beyond the second animal; and in only one (out of several 

 attempts) were we able to observe its toxic influence on a third. Whereas, in the three 

 cases cited, four animals in succession rapidly succumbed to the effect of the virus 

 contained in, or initiated by, a solution of ordinary alvine discharge. 



This result cannot be attributed to mere idiosyncrasy on the part of the animals 

 in question; for not only in the experiments on peritonitic fluid has this phenomenon 

 been observed, but in all cases where several experiments were carried out on the 

 introduction of decomposing organic matter into the system. No matter by what 

 channel they were introduced, certain solutions have manifested singularly virulent 

 properties — properties which, hitherto, we have not been able to identify with any 

 physical or chemical peculiarity. 



C-— Summary: With remarks on the probable Nature and relative Degree of 

 Virulence of the toxic elements in Choleraic and other Alvine Discharges. 



The experiments just recorded agree in their general results in a marked manner 

 with those which we have previously published, and quite bear out the inferences 

 which we then felt justified in placing on record ; but as the element of number is of 

 such consequence in obscure questions of this nature, we have thought it advisable to 

 bring together all the observations which have been detailed in this and in our former 

 report, so that the lesson which it is possible for such a series of experiments to convey 

 may be the more readily perceived. 



TABLE XIX. 



Total Experiments on the Effect of the Introduction of Solutions of Organic Substances, 

 from various sources, into the Circulation of Dogs. 



From this table it will be seen that strained alvine discharges from persons 

 suffering from cholera have been introduced into the veins of dogs on seventy-six 

 occasions, with positive results in thirty-four, or at the rate of 44*7 per cent. 



The result of a similar series of experiments with, by no means weak, solutions 



