Medical Officers of the Army of India.
organisms present in different cases, and from distinct localities, many independ-
ent investigations being liable to be conducted in regard to cultivations originally
derived from a common source.
That the multiplicity of species should have so long escaped notice in
India, and specially in an endemic locality like Calcutta, in which fresh materials
may be obtained more or less constantly throughout the entire course of the
year from distinct sources, is not so excusable, and is only to be accounted for
by the small numbers of resident investigators, and by the fact that atten-
tion was primarily directed to other points, so that the occurrence of minor
discrepancies in the phenomena coming under observation in different cases for
some time attracted no particular notice. That such minor discrepancies
presented themselves occasionally in my own experience I can now readily
recognise; but at the time when they did so, they were passed over as trivial, and
failed to convey any suggestion of the fact of the possible presence of distinct
species. The fact that, owing to the conditions of temperature which prevail
during a great part of the year, Agar-agar has to be substituted for common
gelatine as a medium, was, no doubt, one reason why the distinctness of the
different species escaped notice, as there can be no doubt that the latter medium
is much more favorable than the former as a means of demonstrating specific
peculiarities in the growth of distinct schizomycete organisms, but what now
appears to have been very suggestive phenomena certainly did from time to time
present themselves.
When working at the subject of the septicaemic phenomena, sometimes
presenting themselves in guinea-pigs subsequent to subcutaneous injections of
Comma-Bacilli, it was observed, and even specially recorded, that very different
results followed on the injection of materials derived from cultivations belonging
to series related to distinct cases of cholera, small doses from certain cultivations
being constantly followed by the death of the animals experimented with, whilst
much larger amounts of materials derived from cultivations of different origin,
were constantly innocuous. Various distinctive peculiarities of growth in Commas,
originally derived from distinct sources, but cultivated under precisely like exter-
nal conditions, were also noted from time to time. In certain cases, too, these
were very conspicuous. For example, in a series of experiments which were conduct
- e d i n t h e
, beginning of 1889, in regard to the question of the occurrence of spore-
formation as described by Hueppe, very striking differences presented themselves
in regard to the style of growth of distinct sets of Commas when exposed to
uniform conditions of medium and temperature, some of them showing hardly
any tendency when cultivated in peptonised broth to become associated in vibri-
onic filaments, whilst in the case of others such filaments formed the characteris-
tic feature of the cultivations. In the case of one set of Commas of the latter
class, moreover, the filaments showed very distinctive features in the later periods
of their existence, the greater number of the constituent elements ultimately failing
B 2
B 2