1888 - 89 .] Messrs Macleod and Milles on Asiatic Cholera. 25 
“droplet” with a negative result can scarcely be compared with 
both microscopic and cultivation examinations of several drops, with 
positive results. 
Klein’s experiment by itself, if it proves anything, proves that he 
was dealing with an example of spontaneous generation ! Further, 
it is not quite clear whether Klein claims that he was dealing with 
Koch’s organism, or only with one identical as to the characters 
given. 
Part IV . — The Reproduction of the Disease by Neil Macleod , 
M.D. Edin . — If Koch’s comma bacillus be the cause of Asiatic 
cholera, the terms of reproduction of the disease may be stated thus: 
— There being no doubt that the organism finds conditions favour- 
able to growth and multiplication in the human small intestine; 
there being as little doubt that it must have found its way there 
alive; and, since Asiatic cholera in man is capable of recognition 
by certain signs, then on pure cultivations of the living comma 
bacillus being introduced into the small intestine of a lower animal, 
the growth and multiplication of the organism in the small gut must 
be associated with the signs requisite for the recognition of the 
disease in man, but it must be proved that these signs themselves 
are not the result of the means by which the organism was intro- 
duced into the bowel. 
While the early part of Koch’s work was deemed of sufficient 
importance to be examined into by several British workers, and all 
of these, with the exception of Drs Koy, Graham Brown, and 
Sherrington, have practically confirmed Koch’s facts up to the 
point of reproduction of the disease in this country, Klein and 
Watson Cheyne alone have experimentally examined Koch’s claim 
of having reproduced the disease, as set forth in the Second Berlin 
Congress of 1885, although several have been content to criticise. 
Watson Cheyne confirms Koch’s results after Nicati and Rietsch’s 
method, and the conclusion drawn therefrom, but does not appear to 
have made experiments after Koch’s own method. Klein admits 
that Koch’s bacillus is pathogenic to guinea pigs, but opposes the 
conclusion that it is the cause of Asiatic cholera. 
At the present time the general medical opinion in this country 
as to the relationship of the comma bacillus to Asiatic cholera may 
be stated thus : though easily identifiable, found as a constant con- 
