l60 BACTERIA. 



of water, from a district in which it was known that several 

 people were suffering from cholera. A case had been im- 

 ported into this district on the second day of a certain 

 month, the dejecta from this patient drained into a tank, 

 near which the milkman's house stood ; on the seventh day 

 of the same month the first new case occurred among the 

 milkman's neighbours, and on the same day the first case of 

 diarrhoea occurred on board the Ardenclutha, and two days 

 later a case of undoubted cholera occurred in the ship. 

 These facts are in themselves interesting and instructive, 

 but they are rendered doubly so by the fact that of the other 

 members of the crew, fourteen in number, who had taken 

 none of the watered milk, not a single one was attacked by 

 diarrhoea or cholera. 



Cholera bacilli are so little fastidious in their diet, that, 

 within certain limits, they are satisfied with anything, but 

 there are certain things at which even they draw the line — 

 soup maigre, for instance, they abhor, as also sour things ; 

 acids are to them a deadly poison ; on the other hand, how- 

 ever, they are somewhat exclusive in their habits, and the 

 presence of other and more vulgar bacteria they cannot 

 brook for long. For example, if intestinal contents or 

 dejecta from a case of cholera are sprinkled on moist soil or 

 damp linen kept at blood heat the comma bacilli increase 

 at an enormous rate for the first twenty-four or thirty-six 

 hours, and under these conditions, as already seen, there 

 may be obtained almost pure cultivations of the specific 

 organism, but on the third or fourth day it begins to die 

 out, and other bacteria are found to be asserting themselves 

 most strongly. 



Babes has found that at a temperature of 30° C. the bacillus will grow upon 

 various kinds of meat, on eggs, on various vegetables, and on moistened 

 bread. It also multiplies in the dejecta from healthy patients, on cheese, 

 in coffee, chocolate, eau sucree, and other kinds of fluid sugars ; but it can- 

 not exist for twenty-four hours on acid fluids or vegetables, on mustard or 

 onions, or in wine, beer, or distilled water. Distilled water and soup 

 maigre are never sufficient for its nutriment, and if the strength of any of 

 the usual cultivation media be reduced to about a fortieth of the original 

 strength, there is gradual diminution in the number of organisms ; even 

 in water which contains an ordinary amount of organic and inorganic 

 material in solution, multiplication of the comma bacillus does not take 

 place. Where, however, there is a very large accumulation of organic 

 matters, as at the margin of stagnant water, where there are large 

 quantities of nutrient materials " from the presence of a variety of solid 



