Diarrhoea and intestinal fluid accumulation in uninfected rabbits cross perfused with blood from donor rabbits intra-intestinally infected with cholera.

Abstract

CHOLERA is still a serious menace, and although it can be cured by chemotherapy and intravenous fluid replacement, such treatment is impracticable in places where most epidemics occur. Protection by vaccines is still brief (3–6 months) and uncertain (40–80 per cent1). Cholera is widely believed to be a local disease of the intestine, so that circulating antibodies would not encounter the toxin causing the diarrhoea. Finkelstein2 stated: “All of our observations, especially those on the immunology of experimental cholera, are consistent with the assumption that the choleragen acts directly and locally, perhaps even at the very surface of the intestinal mucosa”.