On the Pathology of Cholera Asiatica, 



173 



The loss of terrestrial heat by radiation is now exceedingly small. 

 But small as this loss is, it cannot take place without producing con- 

 traction, and Cordier long since calculated that supposing five volcanic 

 eruptions to take place annually, it would take a century to eject so 

 much lava as would shorten the radius of the earth to the extent of 

 1 mm., or about fa inch. 



I therefore conclude that the hypothesis originally propounded, 

 namely, that volcanic phenomena are dependent on the effect of 

 secular refrigeration is, with certain modifications, the one that best 

 meets the necessities of the problem. 



" Preliminary Report on the Pathology of Cholera Asiatica 

 (as observed in Spain, 1885)." By C. S. Roy, F.R.S., 

 J. Graham Brown, M.D., &c., and C. S. Sherrington, M.B. 

 Received and read June 10, 1886. 



The differences of opinion among pathologists as to the relation of 

 certain micro-organisms, — and more especially of a curved bacillus 

 described by Koch — to Cholera Asiatica, led to our being deputed 

 last summer, by the Association for the Promotion of Research in 

 Medicine, acting in conjunction with the Royal Society and University 

 of Cambridge, to proceed to Spain to make further investigations on 

 the subject. 



In Madrid we were able to make autopsies on twenty-five typical 

 cases of cholera, the post-mortem examinations being made in many of 

 them either immediately after death or within very few hours of it. 

 Our attention was at first directed chiefly to the relation of the comma 

 bacillus of Koch to Cholera Asiatica. Early in our inquiries we were 

 struck by the fact that Koch's comma bacillus is not discoverable in 

 the intestinal contents of all cases of cholera. We employed much time 

 and care in the examination of thin dried films of the mucous flakes 

 and fluid contained in the intestine, these films being stained by 

 methods which we knew to be well fitted to show the comma bacillus 

 if that micro-organism were present. Such films from one or two 

 fatal cholera cases showed that the intestinal contents contained 

 enormously larger numbers of comma bacilli than of other parasites. 

 In some of the cases the comma bacillus, though certainly present, 

 was not the most marked feature in the preparation, and in certain of 

 these cases we were only able to find these bacilli after prolonged 

 and careful searching. In many cases of undoubted Cholera Asiatica 

 where death occurred before the reaction stage had set in, we were 

 unable to detect comma bacilli in any of the films or cultures prepared 

 from the intestinal contents taken from different parts of the alimen- 

 tary canal. 



VOL. XLI. n 



