1887 .] 
Dr A. B. Griffiths on Micro-Organisms. 
47 
papers were full of accounts of “ human beings dying in heaps ” 
from cholera in the province of Cordova, in the Argentine Eepuhlic. 
Ts there no cure for cholera ? Or, in other words, is there no agent 
that will destroy Koch’s bacillus in the human body % In passing, I 
may say, through reading the various newspaper abstracts of my 
memoir {Proc. Roij. Soc. Edin., vol. xiv. pp. 97-106), read before 
the Society on January 31, 1887, Mr T. F. Agar (Consul-General 
for the Argentine Eepuhlic in Scotland) kindly wrote for a copy 
of my memoir. A written copy was forwarded to him, and he has 
presented it to his Government at Buenos Ayres. I am to have 
full details of any experiments performed on behalf of the Govern- 
ment of the Argentine Eepuhlic hearing on my injection method in 
cases of cholera.'^* 
It has been suggested some few years ago, that rum or cognac, 
containing 25 grammes of salicylic acid to the litre,! should he 
taken when cholera is epidemic. 
If salicylic acid proves useful as a germicide, or even a pre- 
servative, from the severer attacks of Koch’s Bacillus komma, would 
not anal and hypodermic injections of solutions of the acid he the 
best method of combating this disease ^ By these two kinds of 
injections, we should meet the growths of the microbe in the 
intestines, and also those that may have passed into the blood 
system by absorption. 
Koch has remarked that acids in general are the greatest hin- 
drance for the development of the cholera bacillus ; and Dr Klein, 
F.E.S. {Micro-Organisms and Disease, p. 256), says — “Patho- 
genic organisms do not thrive in an acid medium.” At any rate, 
whether the germicidal agent or medicament used be salicylic 
acid or one more powerful ; I think that such a method as the 
one described would be the most rational, and evidently would 
possess a scientific basis, namely, the destruction of microbes in situ. 
In the case of disinfecting a whole district against the cliolera 
epidemic, the late Dr Wm. Budd, F.E.S., placed in the sewers of 
Bristol ferrous sulphate. Dr Budd says : — “ In this way a chemical 
* Any information received from this source will be embodied in another 
paper communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 
t “Three teaspoonfuls of the mixture to be taken between meals in coffee 
or tea.” 
