ASIATIC CHOLERA. 57 



Giamaleia employed cultures which had been sterilized at 120°. 

 Subcutaneous injections of these caused transient oedema from which 

 the animals soon recovered. When the cultures were sterilized at 

 60°, large doses (10 c.c. per kilogram body-weight) caused death. 

 In this connection Bouchard remarks that in 1884 he obtained by 

 the intravenous injection of the urine of a cholera patient in rabbits, 

 muscular tremor, cyanosis, albnminnria and diarrhoea, but that he 

 has never succeeded in inducing these symptoms with the cholera 

 vibrio. 



Petri states that the comma bacillus produces in pepton cultures 

 large amounts of tyrosin and leucrn, a small quantity of indol, fatty 

 acids, poisonous bases, and a poisonous proteid. The proteid re- 

 sembles pepton in its behavior to heat and chemical reagents and 

 is designated by Petri as " toxopepton." In quantities of 0.36 

 gram per kilogram, it is fatal to guinea-pigs within eighteen hours, 

 producing muscle tremor and paralysis. Autopsy shows an effu- 

 sion into the peritoneal cavity, marked injection of the blood vessels 

 of the intestines, and isolated hemorrhagic spots. It is possible that 

 the substance contains the cholera toxin, but the greater part of it 

 consists of harmless proteid bodies. 



SchoU has studied the chemical products of the cholera bacillus 

 when grown under anaerobic conditions. For this purpose he em- 

 ployed fresh sterilized eggs, after the method of Hueppe. The inoc- 

 ulated eggs, after being kept for eighteen days at 36°, were opened. 

 The contents smeUed intensely of hydrogen sulphid, but not of 

 amines. The albumin was completely fluid, while the yolk was more 

 solid and of a dark color. Five c.c. of the fluid contents injected into 

 the abdomen of a guinea-pig caused at first paralysis of the posterior 

 extremities, then general paralysis, and death within forty minutes. 

 Section showed the vessels of the small intestine and stomach highly 

 injected, a colorless effusion in the peritoneal cavity, and the heart 

 in diastole. A like result was obtained by the use of an aqueous 

 extract of a precipitate obtained by the addition of the albuminous 

 content of the egg to ten times its volume of absolute alcohol. It is 

 more than probable that the effect obtained in these experimente was 

 due to the alcohol or hydrogen sulphid retained in the albuminous 

 substance. 



Hueppe holds that the cholera poison results from the analytic or 

 ferment action of the germ on the proteids in which it grows, and 

 that the proteids of the bacterial cells are not poisonous. Following 

 the classification of bacterial proteids which we have made, Hueppe 

 would place the cholera toxin among our bacterial proteids and the 

 immunizing substance among the cellular proteids. At one time he 

 claimed that these substances could be separated in the following 

 manner : Rice-water stools from cholera patients are treated with 

 absolute alcohol ; both the toxin and the immunizing substance are 



