708 
NIDUS OF THE FI LARI A BRONCHIALIS. 
Jar stages of decomposition. In connection with this point, 
the experiments of Thiersch, on the Continent, may be re- 
membered: he found that mice were seized with fatal cholera 
on swallowing evacuations only on the lapse of a certain pe- 
riod after evacuation.* Some experimentalists hold that the 
cholera poison resides in the fixed, others in the volatile, pro- 
ducts of decomposition of the evacuations ; while some re- 
gard these dejections as wholly innocuous. This contrariety 
of opinion — this opposing testimony of experimentalists — is 
only one instance of the necessity of endeavouring to decide 
the question by observation on cholera among the lower 
animals. It may also be here mentioned, that there are re- 
corded cases of men having accidentally or intentionally 
swallowed large or small quantities of the evacuations of 
cholera patients without subsequent bad effects ; they are, 
however, of comparatively little value. 
An appropriate supplement to remarks on the natural in- 
fluence of cholera on the lower animals, is the subject of 
experimentation on the communicability of the disease to these 
animals ; a subject which, like the former, though of great 
importance as bearing on the natural history of cholera in 
man, has attracted comparatively little attention in this 
country. On this subject, however, my space forbids me to 
enter. Nor can I do more than merely allude to the influ- 
ence of the atmospheric poison, during periods of epidemic 
cholera in man, on vegetation — to the epidemic diseases of 
plants , a subject to which many of the above remarks equally 
apply. The study of the epidemic diseases of plants ought 
to rank pari passu with that of epizootic diseases in the 
lower animals ; these diseases are probably intimately con- 
nected, and a knowledge of the one class is calculated to 
throw light on the study of the other. — Edinburgh Medical 
Journal . 
NIDUS OP THE FILARIA BRONCHIALIS. 
(‘ Proceedings of the Pathological Society / Tuesday , November 3, 1857). 
Dr. Ranke exhibited the lungs of three sheep affected 
with a form of disease now very prevalent among those ani- 
mals. The lungs were studded with a great number of gelati- 
nous-looking bodies, mostly of a yellowish colour, varying in 
size from that of a mustard-seed to that of a bean. The 
smallest are generally roundish and almost transparent, 
sometimes they show an opaque white point in the centre, 
* ‘Medical Times and Gazette/ November 18 and 25, 1851. 
