958 Transactions of the Society. 



explicit statement of Koch himself in his address before the Berlin 

 Congress, that such injections or inoculations made upon various 

 animals, including monkeys, in whatever manner, were without 

 result; and further, as he had satisfied himself by careful in- 

 quiry in India, and as indeed is notorious, that domestic animals 

 generally are not susceptible to cholera. 



More recently Dr. Klein has further confirmed and established 

 his own conclusions on this point by a brilliant series of experiments, 

 admirably conceived and carried out in conjunction with the Brown 

 Professor of Pathology, by which he has produced a condition in 

 monkeys, by ligaturing a loop of the intestine and injecting a small 

 quantity of sulphate of magnesia, which induced a large develop- 

 ment in this situation of Koch's cholera comma bacilli. A more 

 conclusive solution of the question at issue, and proof of the harm- 

 less character of the microbe, it is diflBcult to conceive ; and it is a 

 brilliant termination to a most important scientific investigation, the 

 value of which all will recognize, finally proving that the microbe 

 is the result and not the cause of the disease in which it appears.* 



In conclusion, I must say that, disappointing though it is that 

 our knowledge of the aetiology of this disease is not advanced by 

 recent investigations, we may yet hope that the microbe may be in 

 some measure diagnostic of Asiatic cholera, as it has not yet been 

 shown to occur in any numbers in the same situations in other 

 diseases ; though the recent demonstrations of its ubiquitous cha- 

 racter necessitate further careful search for it. Should its diag- 

 nostic value be finally established, Dr. Koch will have conferred 

 a benefit of the highest practical importance to every nation in 

 Europe and Asia, as the result of his work, and will have greatly 

 enhanced his previous pre-eminently high reputation as a micro- 

 biologist. 



* If authority were wanting for this opinion, I might quote that of one of the 

 most competent in this country, viz. Dr. Burdon Sanderson, in his address at 

 the Eoyal Institution in May last, and in the July No. of the ' Contemporary 

 Review.' 



