lonlnTjlnZlT^S^^^ ^^^^^ Poithological Pwcesses. 23 
year, at the meeting of savants wliicli has been termed the Weimar 
Cholera Congress, you will find a report in which the reporter of 
the Committee which had been appointed for the task states that 
they had examined cells from choleraic intestines, and found them 
covered by a mucous matter, in which many granules were imbedded ; 
that they believed these granules to be a kind of alga living in 
gelatine, produced by its own vital action (as many algae actually 
do) and to this formation they gave the name of " Zoogloea." The 
Greek word " yAo/a " in modernized language becomes " gloea," and 
means glue, gelatine, or mucus. This word therefore does not 
imply a new discovery any more than micrococcus. The granules 
imbedded in mucus are only newly interpreted thereby to be algae 
imbedded in their own, a self-made gelatine. 
Thus far all observers are agreed regarding what is visible on 
desquamated cells from cholera intestines, although they all differ 
regarding the interpretation to be put upon the data. But now 
begin discrepancies of fact and argument, wdiich are highly charac- 
teristic of the nature of the method by which the inquiry is con- 
ducted. The Weimar reporter (De Bary, a botanist, and considered 
an authority in fungology, on which he has published a learned and 
voluminous treatise) says, that no one had a right to assume that 
these algae of the zoogloea developed themselves into a fungus, 
unless he had with his eyes witnessed the transformation directly 
under the microscope. This opinion is very prudent, and manifests 
the true philosopher. Another inquirer (Klob of Vienna) is much 
less cautious. He found the granules, termed them spores, and 
stated that they regularly grew to be fungi, of the filiform, jointed 
kind, to which he gave the name of " cylindro-tasnium." At the 
time of the first flush of the supposed discovery, all these formations 
were to have been specific to cholera only. But Klob has since 
found them to be present in evacuations from persons who were 
sufi'ering from diseases having nothing in common with cholera. 
The doctrines of the Vienna inquirer are thus in course of being let 
down easy, and as they moreover fail to satisfy the deiiiaiid of the 
Weimar reporter above given, require no further comment from 
me. 
The discoverer of the micrococcus, Hallier, Professor of Botany 
at Jena, has gone farther than any other writer, and has given to 
his ideas so decided a form, that he has entitled his pamphlet con- 
taining their exposition abruptly, ' The Cholera Contagium,' as if 
he had actually found and settled it. And how do you think he 
has made his discovery ? The professor sent or wrote for some 
cholera evacuation from Elberfeld, and some bottles were filled with 
it, stoppered and sent to him to Jena. Another bottle which had , 
been kept filled and corked for more than six months was sent to 
him from Berlin. He allowed those bottles to stand upside down 
