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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    where a woman had died of cholera seven weeks before. Water was taken from the kettle, and from a stone water jug in his room, as well as from a cistern which supplied the house. As he had dined in another house on the day previous to his attack, water was procured thence also. The deposits of these several specimens were likewise submitted to careful microscopic examination. The uniform result of these experiments, as of the former series, was negative. No bodies were found which could be regarded as identical with the more characteristic of those discovered, by Messrs. Brittan and Swayne, in the rice-water dejections of Cholera. The objects met with were far more numerous than those seen in the moisture condensed from atmosphere. The sediment, when viewed with the l-8th-inch object glass of Ross, or 1-lGth-inch object glass of Powell and Lealand, presented, besides amorphous matter, an almost endless variety of organic forms, both animal and vegetable. Amongst these were many round or oval cells, of various dimensions, and some separate rings of minute size, colourless, and pellucid. The cells had generally very delicate walls and a clear cavity, were never flattened, and often contained a multitude of distinct granules, which, in some in¬ stances, presented the molecular motion. Like the rings, these cells were obviously different in their nature from the thick-edged disks, which the descrip¬ tions and drawings of Messrs. Brittan and Swayne and Dr. Budd had led us to regard as the character¬ istic corpuscles of the Cholera evacuations. The negative results of our search in the atmosphere of infected places, for objects identical with those just referred to, are confirmed by some observations communicated to us by Mr. Marshall. While Cholera c