Report on the nature and import of certain microscopic bodies found in the intestinal discharges of cholera. Presented to the Cholera Committee of the Royal College of Physicians ... by their sub-committee, on the 17th October, 1849 / [By W. Baly and W.W. Gull].

  • Royal College of Physicians of London. Cholera Committee.
Date:
[1849]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the nature and import of certain microscopic bodies found in the intestinal discharges of cholera. Presented to the Cholera Committee of the Royal College of Physicians ... by their sub-committee, on the 17th October, 1849 / [By W. Baly and W.W. Gull]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    time, break up into irregular granular masses ; whilst the decomposing bodies depicted by Dr. Budd, seem to be, in part, homogeneous, membranous cells de¬ hiscing ; and are, perhaps, starch cells. The rings are, most probably, parts of disintegrated vegetable tissue. It is shown by Mr. Marshall, and had before been noticed by Boehm and others, that cells like fungi, or their spores, are occasionally found in the excretions in Cholera. These, however, have a more delicate structure than any of the bodies described as charac¬ teristic of Cholera, and are totally different from them. It is well known that various vegetable forms are apt to become developed in organic fluids gene¬ rally. From a review of the foregoing facts, it is obvious that various bodies found in cholera dejections have been confounded, and described as identical. It is also shewn, that many are traceable to an extraneous source, and that even the disks placed in our third division,' are not fungi. The statement, that the bodies found in the cholera dejections present an endogenous multiplication, has, in all probability, arisen from con¬ founding them with the uredo, or from mistaking the appearances produced by the small bodies seen through, or upon, the larger ones, or entangled in their sub¬ stance. We are unable to identify the rings obtained from the air and figured by Mr. Brittan with any of the bodies included by him under the term ‘annular bodies7. Our own experiments have satisfied us that these bodies do not commonly exist in the atmosphere of