30 
Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
Four guinea pigs were injected, two with tincture of opium and 
two with rectified spirit, into the peritoneal cavity, in repeated doses, 
till the animals were sufficiently stupefied to lie on the side when 
placed there. Two c.cm. of spirit were used in one case, and 2*75 
c.cm. in the other; their weights being respectively 730 and 750 
grammes. They were killed at intervals of from six to nine hours 
afterwards, when relaxation of the intestine and arrest of peristaltic 
movement were amply demonstrated in all four by distension of the 
small intestine with food to a degree never seen in health. In the 
animals that received the spirit the stupefaction lasted longer, and 
there was increased vascularity of both peritoneal and pleural serous 
membranes, resembling that present in the conjunctiva, this vascu- 
larity being absent in the opium-treated animals. The effect of 
alcohol on vascularity is a well-known one. Klein’s experiments, 
in which he gave the opium in other ways than by the peritoneal 
cavity, and then injected the cholera bacillus with negative results, 
are inconclusive, as he never made a control experiment with his 
material to see whether he was able to produce Koch’s results under 
Koch’s conditions. The well-known attenuation of virus through 
cultivation is left out of consideration, and no details of these thirty 
experiments as to doses, age of the cultivations, or conditions of 
administration are given. 
In seven cholera experiments, varying quantities of a gelatine 
tube cultivation of comma bacilli were added to 5 c.cm. of sterilised 
broth and injected into the animal’s stomach. In the next twenty- 
seven experiments a tube, containing about 5 c.cm. of slightly alkaline 
sterilised broth, was inoculated from a gelatine cultivation of the 
bacilli, and incubated at 98° Fahr. for twenty-four or more hours, 
and varying quantities of this were injected. ' Of these animals 
twenty-one died, thirteen recovered. The twenty-one animals 
recovered from the effects of the opium, sat up, ran about, and 
those that had small doses of the cholera material, fed. On the 
following day they became sick, refused food, the coat stared , the 
edges of the eyelids became dry and gummy, and the hind legs were 
dragged, later becoming as if paralysed. Some animals died on the 
second day, others on the third or fourth. 
Of eleven control animals treated exactly in the same way, but 
receiving sterilised instead of cholera broth, all recovered. 
