10
Scientific Memoirs by
We have here five cases of the subcutaneous injection of choleraic commas
in three of which fatal results ensued. There can, I believe, be no reasonable
doubt that the commas exerted. a specific pathogenic influence in these cases.
The general uniformity of the lesions present in all of them, together with the
fact of the general systemic diffusion of the commas, appears to be conclusive in
regard to this point.
The results are such as would appear to prove conclusively that subcutaneous
injections of commatous media are not unattended with possible risks. When,
however, we come to consider the matter further, we encounter two questions
calling for separate consideration. These are, 1st : How far are these results con-
firmatory in a belief in the causative relation of the comma-bacilli to cholera ?
and, 2nd : How are we to account for the exemption of two of the animals
experimented with ?
The fact that the choleraic commas are under certain circumstances patho-
genic is one thing, that they are the efficient cause of cholera is quite another.
In dealing with the symptoms manifesting themselves in any such experiments as
the above, we are at the outset encountered by doubts as to the extent to which
we are entitled to expect any exact uniformity of symptoms in animals of unlike
nature and habits, and how far we are justified in tracing parallelisms in symp-
toms of differing characters. The same holds good, to a certain extent at all
events, in regard to the lesions revealed by post-mortem examinations.
Allowing all this due weight, there were apparently in these cases of disease
following the subcutaneous introduction of choleraic commas into the system certain
points of similarity to, or even of close agreement with, cases of cholera. So far as
the symptoms are concerned, there was in the first case unquestionably consider-
able depression of surface temperature with frequent muscular twitchings, if not
actual cramps, and, both in it and the next one, there was marked sinking of the
eyeballs. In the third case, on the other hand, there was distinct diarrhœa. In all of
them, as in cases of cholera, comma-bacilli were present in large numbers in the con-
tents of the intestinal canal. The mere presence of curved bacilli would, of course,
have been of no special significance, as such bodies are unequivocally present
in considerable numbers within the intestines of healthy guinea-pigs. But
while such commas, in so far as my experience goes, are incapable of cultivation
in the agar-agar or gelatine media favourable to the growth of choleraic commas,
those present in these cases are readily cultivable, and the pure cultivations of
them in various media are identical in macroscopic and microscopic characters
with choleraic ones. In two cases, moreover, desquamation of the epithelial lining
of the intestinal canal formed a conspicuous feature, and although in one of them the
process had certainly not advanced very far, in the other it had taken place as
completely as it ever does even in those cases of cholera in which it attains its
maximum development. Other minor points of resemblance are to be found in the
great loss in body weight quite apart from any diarrhœa, and in the absence of
any direct evidence of the presence of commas in the liver, kidneys, spleen, or