CHAPTER XXXII 



Further researches on the intestinal flora — Forty Years' Search for 

 a Rational Conception of Life. 



Since Metchnikoff had conceived the idea that a con- 

 siderable part was played in human life by the in- 

 testinal flora, his thoughts had centred around a study 

 which he thought profitable : that of the influence of 

 intestinal microbes on the normal and on the patho- 

 logical organism. 



So, on his return from Russia, he took advantage 

 of the fact that an epidemic of infantile cholera had 

 broken out in order to continue his former investiga- 

 tions of that disease. The numerous cases which he 

 thus studied allowed him finally to establish the 

 specific part of the B. 'proteus as well as the similarity 

 between infantUe cholera and Asiatic cholera. This 

 time he succeeded in contaminating, not only young 

 anthropoid apes, but also new-born rabbits, and that 

 not only through sick children's excreta, but by pure 

 cultures of the proteus, which eliminated every doubt 

 of the specificity of this microbe. 



Metchnikofi explained the contamination of chil- 

 dren exclusively breast-fed, either by the presence of 

 a carrier personally refractory, among the entourage, 

 or by the transport of dirt, by means of flies, on the 

 objects which infants so readily put into their mouths. 

 He therefore advised preventive means of absolute 



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