TOXINS OF THE CHOLERA SPIRILLUM. 417 



It will be seen from the above account that the evidence 

 obtained from experiments on intestinal infection of animals, 

 though by no means sufficient to establish the specific relation- 

 ship of the cholera organism, is on the whole favourable to this 

 view, especially when it is borne in mind that animals do not in 

 natural conditions suffer from the disease. 



Experiments performed by direct inoculation also supply 

 interesting facts. Intraperitoneal injection in guinea-pigs is 

 followed by general symptoms of illness, the most prominent 

 being distention of the abdomen, subnormal temperature, and, 

 ultimately, profound collapse. There is peritoneal effusion, 

 which may be comparatively clear, or may be somewhat turbid 

 and contain flakes of lymph, according to the stage at which 

 death takes place. If the dose is large, organisms are found in 

 considerable numbers in the blood and also in the small intes- 

 tine, but with smaller doses they are practically confined to the 

 peritoneum. Kolle found that when the minimum lethal dose 

 was used in guinea-pigs, the peritoneum might be free from 

 organisms at the time of death, the fatal result having taken 

 place .from an intoxication (cf. diphtheria, p. 365). These and 

 other experiments show that though the organisms undergo a 

 certain amount of multiplication when introduced by the chan- 

 nels mentioned, still the tendency to invade the tissues is not a 

 marked one. On the otber hand, the symptoms of general intox- 

 ication are always pronounced. Hence arise questions as to the 

 nature and mode of action of toxic bodies produced by the cholera 

 organism. 



Toxins. — Though there is no doubt that there are formed 

 by Koch's spirillum toxic bodies which produce many of the 

 symptoms of cholera, there is at present very little satisfactory 

 knowledge regarding their chemical nature. The following 

 summary may be given. 



It has been shown, especially by R. Pfeiffer,i that toxic 

 phenomena can be produced by injection of the dead spirilla 

 into animals. A certain quantity of a young culture on agar, 

 killed by exposure to the vapour of chloroform, when injected 

 intraperitoneally into a guinea-pig, may cause death in from 



^ Pfeiffer obtained his earlier results with a vibrio from Massowah, which is now 

 known (as mentioned above) not to be a true cholera organism. The fact shows 

 that the effects described are not specific to the latter. 

 2 E 



