ABSTRACT
Louis Pasteur was greatly impressed by the phenomenon of immunity that followed attacks of smallpox, and by the efficacy of variolation and of Edward Jenner's vaccination. He was the first, through his work on fowl cholera, anthrax, swine erysipelas and rabies between 1880 and 1888, to draw attention to the possibilities of similar prophylactic immunization against the newly discovered infectious diseases by inoculation with attenuated or killed causal organisms. Robert Koch's doctrine of the systemic action of the cholera poison prevailed, and since Naval Medical Research Unit Number 3 saw no systemic effects in their patients, they concluded there was no toxin. Cholera is a non-invasive infection of the intestinal mucosa, with no penetration of the mucosa by the organism or any of its products, except for the toxin that binds to the membranes of the most superficial layer of cells it encounters, i.e., the brush border cells covering the villi and the smooth cells of the intervening crypts.
