404 COMMUNICABILITY OF ASIATIC CHOLERA 
between the disagreeable, feculent, and almost fetid dejections 
employed in the above-mentioned counter-experiments, and 
the rice-water discharges of cholera ; the fact that the vomited 
cholera fluid, which would not, from its nature, be so 
repugnant to the stomach of animals, and 'which has been 
eaten by them frequently and voluntarily, has produced as 
positive results as those caused by the dejected matters ; the 
more marked occurrence of an interval before the commence- 
ment of the symptoms produced by the use of the cholera 
fluids ; and, lastly, the support given to inferences drawn 
from the experimental cases in which the cholera evacuations 
were employed, by the phenomena of the accidental cases 
recorded by Otto, Meyer, and Sylvain de Barbe, and by the 
case at St. Ives, Cornwall ; unless, indeed, we regard all these 
last as examples of not specific coincident diarrhoeas. It is 
evident, however, that further and comparative observations 
are needed before we can positively affirm that the deleterious 
substance in the cholera evacutions is peculiar to them ; al- 
though Meyer, indeed, perhaps too sanguinely, maintains that 
from the entire evidence this is probably the case. Until, 
however, this peculiarity be proved to exist, we are scarcely 
entitled to advance to the further question — Is this deleterious 
agent a specific poison capable of reproducing Asiatic cholera ? 
in other words, Is it the cholera agent sought ? Certainly, all 
the symptoms of cholera have not been produced by it ; une- 
quivocal rice-water discharges, blueness, coldness, cramps, 
tarry blood, and non- secretion of urine, are not yet in the 
catalogue of its effects ; and so long as we know so little, as 
a ground of comparison, of the pathology of natural cholera 
in animals, we cannot draw safe conclusions from the 
phenomena produced by the administration of the cholera 
evacuations. 
3. Exhalations from Cholera Patients , their Blood , and their 
Evacuatious . — It is scarcely necessary to repeat, in regard to 
cholera symptoms following ordinary exposure to exhalations 
from living or dead bodies of cholera patients, that unless 
they occurred very frequently, which is not the fact, they 
could not clearly be distinguished from those attributable to 
epidemic influences. Dr. Jannichen, M. Foy, and others, 
however, purposely inhaled the breath of cholera patients 
without harm. Drs. Deynert and Mavroyein did the same 
at Moscow, where also an attendant is said to have ridden for 
hours together in a close carriage with sick people, and yet 
escaped all evil consequences. (Zoubkov’s Report.) Persons 
have slept in the cholera wards as well as upon the cholera 
beds (Searle and others), even with a pillow near them still 
moistened with the vomited matters (Zoubkov), and have 
