XVI] VIBRIO AND SPIRILLUM 443 



the mucous membrane, but eventually poison the animal. 

 And from this I conclude, further, that a multiplication 

 of the comma bacilli can and does take place only when 

 the intestine is previously brought into a diseased state. 

 Under this view all Koch's and Van Ermengem's results 

 become at once intelligible. 



I maintain, then, that the living choleraic comma bacilli 

 per se, however large their number, when introduced into 

 the normal small intestine of the guinea-pig are quite 

 innocuous, but they are rendered capable of great multi- 

 plication if the intestine is previously, from some cause or 

 another, diseased. The cheniical products, the toxins, of 

 such multiplication act as poisons analogous to the 

 ptomaines obtained from putrefactive bacteria. 



That this is the true explanation I find proof in some of 

 Koch's experiments with other bacteria, notably with 

 Finkler's and Deneke's comma bacihi. With both these 

 organisms on experimenting in the above manner he 

 obtained positive results ; not so constantly, it is true, but 

 still he did obtain positive results, not identical, but 

 similar. Of course it is not to be expected that, seeing 

 these are three different species, they would act in the same 

 manner. Finkler published a large series of experiments, 

 in which, with his comma bacilli, and after the method of 

 experimentation employed by Koch, he produced results 

 identical with those gained by Koch with the choleraic 

 comma bacillus. There can be no doubt, as will be 

 mentioned later, that Finkler's comma bacillus has nothing 

 to do with cholera nostras, or with any other infectious 

 disease, but that it is simply a putrefactive organism. And 

 on the same grounds Koch's comma bacillus cannot be 

 said by these experiments on the guinea-pig to have been 

 proved to have a causal relation to cholera asiatica or that 



