Medical Officers of the Army of India.
55
the onset of the choleraic condition, and that the symptoms which follow their
inoculation into the animal organism are essentially those of cholera. But any
such assumption in the meantime rests on no sufficient foundation. It is possible
that the views which have been advanced in the previous pages and those which are
entertained by many competent observers may be incorrect, and that comma-bacilli
may really be specific factors in giving rise to the disease, but M. Haffkine's
experiments and results have done absolutely nothing to indicate that they are.
It has long been well known that inoculations of comma-bacilli are in many cases
followed by the development of morbid and frequently fatal effects in the or-
ganism into which they have been introduced, and M. Haffkine has shown that
by means of his method a temporary immunity from liability to such effects
can be established. But this is all that he has been able to do, and his observa-
tions have done nothing whatever to settle the real question at issue, because
they have done nothing to determine whether the symptoms following inocu-
lation can fairly be regarded as of essentially choleraic nature. No one
questions the fact that inoculations of certain comma-bacilli are liable to be
followed by certain morbid effects, or that M. Haffkine has demonstrated a
method of conferring temporary immunity from these, but there has been no suffi-
cient proof, and there is consequently no general concensus of opinion that the mor-
bid effects are of choleraic nature, and, therefore, there are no sufficient grounds
for believing that temporary immunity from them implies any immunity from
cholera. Neither the morbid symptoms nor the immunity can be regarded as
specifically related to the action of a particular species of comma-bacillus or
to the action of comma-bacilli as a group, seeing that Klein has demon-
strated that they can be as effectively produced in experiments in which other
forms of schizomycetes are inoculated in place of comma-bacilli, so that in fact,
in place of affording any additional evidence in favour of a specific causal relation
between the products developed by comma-bacilli and the induction of the
choleraic condition, M. Haffkine's results have tended rather to show that no
such relation exists.* The symptoms cannot be affirmed to be unequivocally
choleraic, and they can be induced by the introduction of various perfectly
distinct forms of schizomycetes into the system, so that there are no grounds
for supposing that immunity from them implies immunity from cholera, or
that they are in any sense necessarily related to the action of organisms of
the nature of those occurring most frequently, and in special abundance in
the contents of the intestinal tract in cases of the disease. It was shown
long ago that certain morbid results follow the inoculation of comma-bacilli or
of certain kinds" of comma-bacilli, and M. Haffkine has demonstrated a method
of securing temporary immunity from these, but those who do not believe
that there is any sufficient evidence to show that the symptoms are of a truly
* " The Anti-cholera Vaccination : an experimental critique," by E. Klein, M.D., F.R.S., Brit.
Med. Your., March 25, 1893, page 632: