174 



Messrs. Roy, Brown, and Sherrington. 



We made also an enormous number of plate cultivations in gelatine 

 and agar- agar, the cultivating media employed being prepared in the 

 manner recommended by Koch. These cultures gave results corre- 

 sponding with those obtained from examination of the dried films 

 above referred to. In a few cases the majority of the colonies which 

 grew in the gelatine were composed of comma bacilli. In others these 

 were comparatively few in number, while in many of our plate cul- 

 tures from the intestinal contents no colonies of comma bacilli pre- 

 sented themselves. The results both of the examination of films and 

 of the plate cultures from the contents of the intestines are therefore 

 opposed to the facts obtained by Koch. We do not think that the 

 complete absence of the comma bacillus in the films and cultures of 

 many of our cases can be explained by want of due care on our 

 part. 



When we came to the preparation and examination of sections of 

 the wall of the intestine, the results we obtained were also different 

 from those described by Koch. The tissues intended for histological 

 examination were placed in absolute alcohol while the autopsy was 

 being made, and the staining method which we chiefly employed was 

 that used by Koch with methylene-blue, which method in our expe- 

 rience is well fitted to show the comma bacillus when it is present in 

 the tissues. 



Only in a few of our cases did we find the bacillus in question 

 situated in the substance of the mucous membrane of the intestine, 

 and in these cases it was present either in or close to the tubular 

 glands of Lieberkiihn or else close to the free surface of the mucous 

 membrane. The situation of the bacilli in these cases was such as led 

 us to the belief that it might easily have penetrated the epithelium 

 either after death or in the few hours preceding death.. In the great 

 majority of our cases careful and conscientious search did not enable 

 us to discover any comma bacilli in the mucous membrane of the in- 

 testine, nor indeed in. any of the tissues or organs which we examined. 

 Under these circumstances we did not think it necessary to make 

 special investigations on the pathogenic effects of the comma bacillus 

 when administered to the lower animals. We have not been able to 

 convince ourselves that the pathogenic effects which Koch, Van 

 Ermengem, and others find to result when comma bacilli are given 

 to certain animals are identical with the phenomena which charac- 

 terise Cholera Asiatica in man. 



Further, the complete absence of comma bacilli, both in the contents 

 of the intestine and in the tissue of many of our cases, makes it 

 impossible for us to accept Koch's views as to the causal relation of 

 the bacillus in question with Cholera Asiatica. 



At the same time we do not think that sufficient evidence has been 

 adduced to prove satisfactorily that Koch's comma bacillus is identical 



