50 
M. 1’ASTIiUK, 
several cultures and several inoculations l Further inquiries only 
will solve these questions. 
However,we possess to-day a disease with microscopic parasites, 
which, notwithstanding its parasitic character, we can reproduce in 
such conditions that it will not recidivate. And besides, we know 
a variety of its virus which acts towards that disease as vaccine 
does toward small-pox. 
Before going further I may be allowed to enter into a very 
interesting digression. 
From the preceding remarks it results that one can easily 
cause chickens to be affected with cholera, and death not be a 
necessary consequence of the disease, or in other words, any sup- 
posable number of animals may recover after inoculation, and I 
do not believe that any surgical clinic has ever noticed more curi¬ 
ous phenomena than those which are manifested in the returns to 
health after inoculations made in the large pectoral muscles. 
The microbe proliferates in the thickness of the muscle as it does 
in a medium of culture. At the same time the muscle becomes 
tumefied, hard, and white on its surface as in its depth. It be¬ 
comes lardaceons, full of purulent globules, still without suppura¬ 
tion. The histological elements are easily broken, as the microbe 
which impregnate them alter and destroy them in feeding on 
their substance. In cases of recovery, the parasite is by degrees 
stopped in its growth and disappears; at the same time the 
necrosed part of the muscle shrinks, hardens and lodges itself in 
a cavity whose lining resembles much a granulating healthy 
wound. The necrosed part soon 'forms a sequestrum so well 
isolated in the cavity where it is closed, that it is felt under the 
finger, through the skin, in the thickness of the muscle, and by the 
smallest incision may be easily extracted. The small wound soon 
closes and the muscle is repaired. Let me terminate, however, by 
an explanation which will, no doubt, seem very legitimate, of the 
fact of the protection given against a second attack of the disease. 
Let us observe a hen well vaccinated by one or several preceding 
vaccinations with weakened virus. Let it be reiuoculated. What 
will take place ? The local lesion will be, so to speak, insignifi¬ 
cant, relatively to that produced by the first operation. These 
