THE GERM ORIGIN OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 383 



men to Alexandria, in Egypt, to ascertain if possible the cause of the disease; 

 during the prosecution of their work one of the members of the French commis- 

 sion died; this unfortunate event put a stop to their work. The German com- 

 mission, led by the indefatigable Koch, not satisfied with the study of the disease 

 in Egypt, went to the cities of Bombay, and Calcutta, in India where it was con- 

 fronted in its original home. When the cholera broke out at Toulon, and Mar- 

 seilles, in France, the commission went to those points, to learn whether it was 

 the same disease that prevailed at Alexandria, and in India. After spending 

 some time at these places, the commission returned to Berlin. Dr. Koch was 

 invited to meet in conference with the members of the Imperial Board of Health, 

 the object of the meeting being to get his views of cholera; he explained at some 

 length the work that had been accomplished ; he discovered the comma-shaped 

 bacillus, or a parasite of a comma shape, which he fpund much smaller than the 

 rod-shaped bacillus of tubercular consumption; he not only discovered this, but 

 he found that they often form into long spiral curves which he called "spirillum." 

 Under favorable conditions these organisms grow rapidly, and when cultivated, 

 and seen in one drop of meat infusion under his microscope they swarm in great 

 numbers; they not only attain their growth rapidly, but they as quickly die; there 

 are many agents which he found destructive to these germs, as camphor, carbolic 

 acid, quinine, sulphate of copper, but by far the most destructive is corrosive 

 sublimate ; he says that they are readily killed by drying. He also says that the 

 cholera bacillus is never found in connection with any other disease than cholera, 

 and he is firmly convinced "that the cholera process and the comma bacilli are 

 intimately related, and there is no other conceivable relation, but that the bacilli 

 precede the disease and excite it." For my own part said he "the matter is 

 proved that the cholera bacilli are the cause of cholera." 



He further says that the virus can be multiplied indefinitely outside the body, 

 but does not think it can grow in rivers, or streams where the current is rapid, 

 but it grows at mouths of drains, standing or stagnant water, and that any animal 

 or vegetable refuse in such places will not only hold but nourish it; subsoil water 

 also propagates it from the same cause ; the disease has a local habitation and that 

 *' all great epidemics of cholera begin in South Bengal where the conditions for 

 the development and growth of the bacillus are most perfect. 



It is only upon the theory of the germ origin of cholera that we can satis- 

 factorily explain the outbreaks that occur in isolated places, or particular dis- 

 tricts in a city, or the country, and while it may attack high or otherwise healthy 

 places, it is well known that the fatality is much greater in low, damp and impure 

 localities. It will be recollected by some of the older citizens of Kansas City 

 that when the cholera prevailed here in 1866 it was almost entirely confined to 

 places where all the surroundings were favorable to its spread, and where the 

 water supply was mostly from springs, or surface wells. In one large house near 

 the Missouri River with many occupants, the disease broke out and many died, 

 the house was vacated and supposed to be cleansed and disinfected, it was soon 

 after reoccupied, when the disease broke out afresh, and with as great fatality as 



VI 11-25 



