A report of microscopical & physiological researches into the nature of the agent or agents producing cholera / by T.R. Lewis and D.D. Cunningham.

  • Lewis, T. R. (Timothy Richards), 1841-1886.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A report of microscopical & physiological researches into the nature of the agent or agents producing cholera / by T.R. Lewis and D.D. Cunningham. 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.

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    again, and found this to have been the case, to a certain extent at all events, in some samples of blood. Still even in these exceptional cases the difference is so marked that we almost venture to state that, given two samples of blood, one being choleraic and the other healthy, although to the naked eye, °or at first sight under the microscope, no difference might be discerned, we could pretty accurately state on the second day to which of the two sources the specimens should be referred. Similar amoeboid corpuscles may very readily be detected creeping out of the blood clot in this climate without any special artificial arrangements being adopted to raise the temperature even in healthy blood; but in no single case have we hitherto seen them appear in anything like the same proportion as in the blood obtained from patients suffering from cholera, where not infrequently little white spots about the size of a millet-seed may be seen with the naked eye, which, when placed under the microscope, will be found to correspond with aggregations of these pus-like corpuscles. Added to this the corpuscles appear to be smal- ler and to disintegrate much more readily in normal blood ; so much so that in the course of about twenty-four hours nothing special is to be observed, merely the usual proportion of white cells, with possibly some aggregations of molecules and a few hyaline cells, regarding the origin of which no conjecture could have been arrived at, had the earlier changes undergone by the preparation not been carefully watched ; whereas in cholera these amoeboid bodies, after they have become spherical, may, as has already been intimated, persist for several days without any marked change. Whether this persistency be owing to the increased den- sity of the blood in cholera, or to the character of the bodies referred to, we are not in a position to state; nor would we for a moment wish it to be inferred that any specific charac- ter can be attributed to them, but it is evident that the blood in cholera is particularly adapted to their development, or at any rate to their being readily recognized and well pre- served. We have examined the blood in other diseases, and in The blood in diseases other such exceptional diseases as tetanus, than cholera. but have failed to discover any such marked deviation from the normal standard in any single instance. Whilst examining some wax-cell preparations of the blood in a case of typhoid fever (the patient having been