The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-05-28
INCUBATION FOR CHOLERA.
Something About DIR. Ferran and the Expert
ments He Has Made.


ments He Has Made.
London Telegraph.
The Madrid papers are full of details on the
experiments of inoculation as a preventive
against cholera, which have been made in Val
encia by young Catalan physician DR. Jaime
Ferran is only thirty-threo years of age, and
after passing through the customary curriculum
at the Institutes of Tortosa and Tarragona, took
his M. d. degree at Barcelona. He has been in
practice at Tortosa for several years, and is al
ready well-known in this country and abroad for
his works on micro-teleph0ny in 1878, and for
his curious Investigations on micro biology and
parasites, which were rewarded by the Royal
Academy of Medicine in Madrid. Dr. Ferran
was sent to Toulon and Marseilles during the
last epidemic of 1884, and he spent several
months with German French and Italian sur
geons studying the epidemic, and especially
DR.. Koch's theories on the comma bacillus,
or cholera microbe. These studies impelled
DR.. Ferran to pursue his investigations
on his return to his own country, and ne thus
came to the conclusion that DR.. Koch had only
observed one of the many stages of this microbes
successive developments. Senior Ferran has dis
covered that by submitting the comma bacillus
to certain chemical elements very similar to the
bile of animals and to the gastric juice of the
human stomach, this mcrobe passes through
successive and invariable stages of development,
in one of which he has detected the eggs, which
are, in his opinion, the real generators and prop
agators of cholera
men and animals which lead him to state that
incubation by this bacillus can produce the
death of animals with every symptom character
istic of cholera, and that the incubation of hu.
nature, but with less intensity and no fatal re-
suits. The incubation is generally practiced
upon the lower part of both arms In two or
three hours it produces local irritation, difficulty
in moving the limb, and dull pain. After about
four or five hours the pulse rises to ia and even
100, and the heat Of the body to 81 and 40 cent?
grade. The person thus inocuiated feels Ian
guild, shivers, loses appetite, and suf-
fers from nausea, diarrhea, cramp and
sleeplessness After twenty-four hours these
in forty eight hours All successive inoculations
even to the extent of eight cubic centimeters of
virus, prove utterly harmless, both in adults
and children. In animals after incubation, it
has been observed that successive and larger
doses of virus, introduced by incubation, also
prove harmless whereas these same doses pro-
duce death with choleraic syptoms in any ami
mails not previously inoculated
DIR. Ferran has also observed that the local pre-
ventive symptoms resulting from incubation sell
dom vary, whereas the general symptoms vary
according to each case Not single case has
occurred in which successive inoculations in
men or animals have caused death. He has
tried his experiments on himself and other
medical men, and on hundreds of believers in
this preventive. He thinks himself, therefore,
justified in expecting from these inoculations
the same results as have been obtained from
incubation in smallpox and carbuncle. The
Madrid academy Of medicine sent down a COM
mission of medical men, and their report is
highly favorable to DR.. Ferrans experiments.