View report page

199
evidence to show that the drinking of water directly
contaminated with small quantities of " rice water "
evacuations has induced Cholera ; and, as regards
the local outbreaks above adverted to, it is certain
that the incriminated waters were contaminated with
sewage, and that there was at least the probability that
that sewage contained the evacuations of Cholera
patients. But on the other hand there is good
reason to believe that the freshly passed stools are
not specifically noxious. Much however of wnat
seems mysterious in reference to these matters
appears to be explained by the important experimental
enquiries first conducted by Professor
Thiersch, and since repeated by Dr. Sanderson in
this country. The experiments which yielded the
most striking results were those performed on mice.
It was ascertained by these gentlemen that when,
under certain conditions, mice were fed with Cholera
evacuations, they were attacked with symptoms
which proved rapidly fatal, and that both symptoms
and post-mortem appearances had a very close
resemblance to those of human Cholera. The chief
points of likeness consisted in the rapidity and
intensity of the disease; in a remarkable lowering
of the temperature (sometimes as much as 20
degrees) ; in the accumulation in the intestines of