391 
Home Department. 
ON THE COMMUNICABILITY OF ASIATIC CHOLERA 
TO DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. 
By J. Marshall, F.R.C.S., &c. 
(From the British and Foreign Medico- Chirurgical Review , 
for April, 1853.) 
(Continued from p. 344.) 
II. On the Communicability of Cholera to Animals . 
In this division of our subject, we shall notice the acci- 
dental and intentional inoculations of the human subject 
with the cholera-fluids. 
1. Experiments with Cholera-Blood . — Accidental punctures 
received during the post-mortem examination of cholera 
patients, which must have occurred to numbers of medical 
men, as well as in the experience of Stilon, M. Le Gallois, 
Moreau de Jonnes, PirogofF, Schmidt, and ourselves, are not, 
so far as we can ascertain, followed by any peculiar mischie- 
vous results. Exceptional cases, such as that of Mr. Pen- 
man, of Sunderland, in 1832,* the only one we can find, may 
be due to general epidemic influence, or, if to contagion, to 
simple inhalation of the poison; so that, unless very nu- 
merous, and constant in their result, such cases are unim- 
portant. 
The inoculation experiments made on animals with cholera- 
blood taken from the dead body, are very numerous; and 
since undue reliance has been placed upon their negative 
results, we think it right to mention them here, although 
they are open to serious objection. Thus, Namiasf took 
clots of blood from the heart, and inserted them beneath the 
skin of rabbits, closing the wound by suture. In many cases 
the animals died in from two to eight days, but not with 
symptoms of cholera. A clot from the blood of a rabbit 
already so destroyed, being in the same way introduced be- 
neath the skin of another, also produced fatal results without 
cholera. If blood-clots from persons not dead of cholera 
were employed, the animals survived. In a subsequent 
series of experiments, it was thought by Namias that real 
cholera symptoms ensued; but this is more than doubtful, 
and, after still further trial, he himself hesitated to pro- 
nounce on the cause of death. The similar experiments of 
* llaslewood and Mordey, pp. 133-5. f Omodei : Annali, Nos. 778-5. 
