228 MICRO-ORGANISMS AND DISEASE [chap. 



easily demonstrated by cover-glass specimens and by 

 culture. 



2. Guinea-pigs injected intraperitoneally with large doses 

 of various species of non-pathogenic bacteria taken from 

 the surface of Agar cultures, e.g. bac. prodigiosus, bacillus 

 coli, vibrio of Finkler, &c., &c., succumb, as has been pointed 

 out in a former chapter, to acute fatal peritonitis. The more 

 or less copious, more or less sanguineous peritoneal fluid 

 is crowded with the microbe injected, but in one or the 

 other such case, although rarely, contains in addition a 

 number of bacilli which in morphological and cultural 

 respects coincide with the bacillus coli. Gartner has met 

 with this bacillus in the peritoneal exudation after intraperi- 

 toneal injection with pus coccus ; I have met with it after 

 prodigiosus injection. Cultures of this peritoneal bacillus 

 prove it to be bacillus coli, and I explained its presence 

 in the peritoneal cavity by the nearness of the intestine — 

 its original habitat — to the inflamed peritoneum. This 

 peritoneal bacillus differs, however, from the intestinal 

 bacillus coli in its high virulence since small doses of 

 the former injected subcutaneously into guinea-pigs produce 

 acute general septicemic infection. 



3. In a good many cases of fatal Efiglish cholera I have 

 found the mucus flakes and the fluid of the small intestine 

 containing a bacillus copiously and almost in pure culture, 

 which in its general morphological and cultural characters 

 (gas- formation, curdling of milk, and indol production) 

 coincides with the bacillus coli ; it is, however, more motile 

 and more cylindrical than the typical bacillus coli. In the 

 mucus flakes it is in some cases present in continuous 

 streaks and masses, and not seldom arranged linearly in the 

 manner characteristic of the cholera vibrio in the mucus 

 flakes of the rice-water contents of the ileum in Asiatic 



