Medical Officers of the Army of India.
another, and of their being quite possibly capable of giving rise to certain identical
noxious products during the course of their development. It has been pointed out
by Lesage and Winter that, in cases of infantile cholera occurring in Paris, a Ba-
cillus was present in the intestinal contents, specifically distinct from Koch's
Bacillus, but possessed of a similar capacity for the development of a special
poisonous product capable of giving rise to the phenomena of so-called experi-
mental cholera in the lower animals.* In the case of the Bacillus discovered by
Prior and Finkler, too, we have to deal with an organism so closely related in its
properties to Koch's species as to be really mainly distinguishable from the
latter in being related to so-called "Cholera Nostras," as distinguished from Chol-
era Asiatica.
It has been hastily assumed that cholera in India is invariably associated
with a single species of Comma-Bacillus, and that it is this which is invariably
associated with the disease when it occurs in spreading epidemics beyond the
limits of India. But the first of these assumptions has now been shown to be
absolutely groundless, and with this the principal ground for the second one
disappears, so that if Comma-Bacilli are to be regarded as in any sense the
essential cause of cholera, it must be as members of a group of species. Were it
possible to show definitely that Comma-Bacilli of one or other species were con
-stantly associated with the disease, and that all the species were closely related
in properties, it might have been fairly maintained that, whilst no individual spe
- c i e s c a n b e r e g a r d e d a s t h e s p e c i f i c c a u s e , t h e g r o u p a s a w h o l e m a y b e v i e w e d
as such, but even could this be safely affirmed, it would necessarily carry with it
important modifications in our views regarding the spread of the disease and the
means likely to be efficient in preventing its epidemic diffusion.
Were cholera really associated with a single species of Bacillus normally
existing only in India, there might be some theoretical grounds for advocating
the employment of quarantine measures calculated to prevent the emigration
of the organism beyond the limits of its native area. But, as the disease is asso-
ciated—certainly in India, and probably in Europe also—with many different spe-
- cies, it would obviously be futile to attempt to prevent the diffusion of these
from India until it had been certainly shown that none of them were native to
Europe. The very existence of a multiplicity of species, even if we regard the
group as essentially causally related to the disease, is necessarily calculated to
give rise to doubts as to whether general epidemic diffusion be not rather due
to the diffusion of conditions favoring the group than to mere artificial diffusion
of one or other species.
In relation to this, it is well to bear in mind that the various species of Com
- m a - B a c i l l i a s s o c i a t e d w i t h c h o l e r a i n I n d i a h a v e a s y e t o n l y b e e n d e t e c t e d t h e r e
in connection with choleraic materials. It is constantly assumed that Koch's
* Lesage :—"Sur le cholera infantile et le cholera nostras." (La Semaine Med., No. 15. 189o.) Winter:-
"Contributions a l'etude du poison cholerique." (Bullet Med., No. 29, 1890.)
F 2
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