Report of the Committee for Scientific Inquiries in relation to the cholera-epidemic of 1854.

Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee for Scientific Inquiries in relation to the cholera-epidemic of 1854. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    35/132 (page 35)
    miscroscopicallj) certain quantities of distilled water and of sulphuric ^icid, through which had been drawn, by a well-devised' suction-apparatus, large volumes of the fiir which it was wished to investigate.— Fron^ tljese examinations appeared as follows, viz.:— (i.) lu the atmosphere of a ward filled with cholera patients, while the disease was at its height, there were diffused various substances ; some not possessed of life— the familiar dust of an inhabited room,—minute hairs, particles of smoke, epidermic scales, vegetable fibres of different kinds and colours, starch granules, &c.; others distinctly having life, and showing growth or movement. Of the latter, Mr. Rainey reports, that they had the appearance of small flocculent masses, visible to the naked eye, in the fluid in the bottom of the vessel; that, exa- mined at the same time by Dr. Thomson and himself, they were found to consist of the mycelia of fungi, appa- rently in an active state of vegetation, mixed with the dusty impurities before mentioned; that he could discover no appreciable difference between these growths and the myceha of fungi which had formed in solutions of vege- table substance after exposure to the air w^here no cholera was present; that besides the fungi, there were extremely minute, colourless, indistinctly beaded fibres (resembling in their general character that form of Vihrionia called bacterium) so abundant as to cover some of the larger branching fibres of the mycelium ; and that these he does ^ ^ot recollect to have seen on mycelia growing in astringent vegetable solutions prepared for the purpose of producing tungi. Dr.Thomson adds, that this air gave very evident chemical signs of containing organic matter. (n.) In the atmosphere of a ward, only partially filled with cholera patients, when the disease was very much on the dechne, the dead and living form, separated by filtra- tion, were of the same kind as those just described; but ine vibrionic fibres were much less numerous than in the Tormer observation. thi'rl'i.l ^^'I^ examination, made when cholera had left dust m^^^^^^^^ ''^''> the ward was empty, consirFpT n .'''5 ^'^^^^ n^y^eli^ of fungi b W but Mr R^-^'^'^'-fi?^ apparentl/in active vegeta- no^i'^^^^^^^ --^-1 -rch, could^find varWs dusw1mt?v'''''^^^^^^ adjacent to the hospital, nous dusty impurities were observed, as also sporules c