Report on the cholera-bacillus / by W. Watson Cheyne.

  • Cheyne, William Watson, Sir, 1852-1932.
Date:
[1885]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the cholera-bacillus / by W. Watson Cheyne. 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.

    45/48 (page 45)
    ArrENDix B. The following is the letter referred to on page 38 :— THE CHOLEKA-BACILLUS OF KOCH. Sir,—In the JouENAL for last week, Dr. Klein makes some rc' marks on the present state of our knowledge of the comma-bacilli of Koch, which he divides into two parts, (1) reference to tlic part of my speech at the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, in which 1 referred to Koch's method of investigating the cholera-bacillus ; and (2) his own views on the subject of the cholera-bacillus. The second part of these remarks deserves careful consideration, and I shall take the oppor- tunity of referring to them in a paper which I hope to publish in the Journal very shortly, The first part raises, however, a purely side- issue, of little consequence at the present time, and hardly worthy of consideration in a scientific paper. I, therefore, think it best to take the present opportunity of dealing with it. 1 maintained that Koch's definition of cholera-bacilli was not merely that they were comma-shaped, but that they possessed other character- istics, more especially of growth, by which they could be distinguished from other bacteria ; that, in fact, his definition was the sum of all their characters. I further stated in this connection that Dr. Koch had searched for these organisms in saliva, fajces, etc., without finding them ; and that, when Dr. Koch said that he had searched for these organisms, he meant that he had not only used the microscope, but had tested the materials by cultivation ; and when Dr. Koch said that he had failed in this search, he meant that he had not found an organ- ism which presented the same microscopic appearance, together with the .same characteristics of growth, as that discovered by him in Asiatic cholera. Dr. Klein says : '' This is what Mr. Watson Chcync saj!., but it is not what Koch said. But Dr. Klein is, as I shall now show, quite mistaken when he makes this statement. Dr. Klein falls into the error, to which I was referring when I spoke, of supposing that Dr. Koch in his research diagnosed cholera-bacilli by their microscopic appearance alone, a mistake which vitiates the whole investigation of the Engli.sh Commission. Dr. Klein says : Where has Kocli stated that the comma-bacillus is peculiar to cholera, and must, therefore, bear a definite relation to the disease ? In Egypt. All the beautiful investigations as to the peculiar behaviour of the choleraic comma-bacilli in gelatine were made by him subsequently in Calcutta. But their discovery, their descriji- tion, and tlieir specific relation to cholera, were asserted by microscopic examination only. The statement in the last sentence is incorrect, a-s will be evident from the quotations which I shall now make. If we turn to Koch's first report (Fortschrittc der Mcdicin, Novembor 1st, 181.3, Beilagc, p. 183), dated Alexandria, September 17th, 1883, we fin-l the following .statements with rcforenco to the pvcscncp of