Report on the pathology and etiology of Asiatic cholera / as observed in Spain in the summer of 1885, by C.S. Roy, J. Graham Brown and C.S. Sherrington, and in Italy in 1886 by C.S. Sherrington.

  • Roy, Charles Smart, 1854-1897.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the pathology and etiology of Asiatic cholera / as observed in Spain in the summer of 1885, by C.S. Roy, J. Graham Brown and C.S. Sherrington, and in Italy in 1886 by C.S. Sherrington. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    20/24 (page 18)
    As to what conclusions may be drawn from the constancy of its occurrence in our Spanish cases, we prefer in tlie meantime to withhold our opinion. While in Spain, within reach of cases of cholera, we found it absolutely impossible, both from the time involved in making cultivations of the enormous number of micro-organisms which we found in the intestines of cholera cases, and from the hmited apphances at our disposal, to follow out the life-history and in- vestigate the physiological characteristics of all the micro- parasites met with. We thought it on the whole wisest to cultivate only the Schizo- mycetes, assuming, perhaps somewhat hastily, that it was d, priori improbable that the unknown parasitic cause of cholera could belong to any of the other forms of micro-parasites. When, therefore, in any of our plate cultures we found colonies of growths which were not bacteria, bacilli, or micrococci, we did not seek to make test-tube cultivations from them; and indeed, un- fortunately, save in a few cases, we omitted even to make very minute microscopic examinations of them. As to the question whether this parasite is usually or constantly present in the intestinal contents and dejecta of cholera patients, that is a matter with regard to which we have not been able to satisfy ourselves. Some of the films taken from the contents of the intestine show striictures pi-esenting a certain resemblance to the micro organism found by us in the substance of the mucosa, but none of our films have been found to show structures un- mistakably identical vdth those in the tissue itself. We have only to add that care is required to stain this parasite in the tissue successfully by Ltiffler's method, but that when properly stained it is easily found with a good y^- immersion lens (Powell and Lealand's 3-V oil is the lens we have chiefly employed). In the vast majority of our cases every section shows three or four specimens of the micro-organism, the number present appearing to us to go hand in hand with the extent of the histo- logical changes in the structure of the mucous membrane. In some cases the parasites are fewer in number, but it is rare ta find a section from the lower part of the small intestine which, when satisfactorily stained, does not show one of the parasites, or a portion of one.