Abstract
THE Report in which Dr. Koch, chief of the German Scientific Expedition, embodies the results hitherto obtained by him and his assistants with regard to the cholera in Egypt, deals in a very guarded manner with the question of the discovery of a definite cholera bacillus. As the result of experiments carried out both on living and dead cholera subjects, it appears that, whereas no distinct organism could be traced in the blood and in the organs which are so frequently the seat of micro-parasites, yet bacteria having distinct characteristics and resembling somewhat in size and form the bacilli found in glanders were discovered in the intestines and their mucous linings; and this under circumstances which seemed to identify them with the disease from which the patients were suffering. Thus, their existence in the intestinal membranes was obvious so soon after death that they could not have been brought about by any post-mortem changes; they were present in the case of all patients who were actually suffering from the disease, and in the bodies of all those who had died of it, whereas they were absent in the case of one patient who had had time to recover from cholera but who had died of some secondary complication; and they were not discoverable in the case of patients who, during the cholera epidemic, succumbed to other diseases. And further, the same bacillus had been met with by Dr. Koch, a year previously, in the case of four patients who had died of cholera in India, and portions of whose intestines had been forwarded to him for examination.
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References
Wundt, "Philosophical Studies," vol. i. p. 473, 1883.
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The Cholera Bacillus . Nature 28, 614 (1883). https://doi.org/10.1038/028614a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/028614a0