No progress was
possible in combating the disease until these root questions of the
etiology of cholera are decided.
Hitherto the advances in knowledge upon the etiology of other infective
diseases have done little toward the etiology of cholera. These advances
have been made within the last ten years, during which time no
opportunity--at least not in Europe--has occurred to pursue researches;
and in India, where there is abundant material for such research, no one
has undertaken the task. The opportunity given by the outbreak of cholera
in Egypt last year to study the disease before it reached European soil
was taken advantage of by various governments, who sent expeditions for
the purpose. He had the honor to take part in one of these, and in
accepting it he well knew the difficulties of the task before him, for
hardly anything was known about the cholera poison, or where it should be
sought; whether it was to be found only in the intestinal canal, or in the
blood, or elsewhere. Nor was it known whether it was of bacterial nature,
or fungoid, or an animal parasite--e.g., an amoeba. But other difficulties
appeared in an unexpected direction. From the accounts given in text-books
he had imagined that the cholera intestine would show very slight changes,
and would be filled with a clear "rice-water" fluid.
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