Editing Vibrio cholerae (section)

=== Identification of the bacterium ===
An Italian physician, [[Filippo Pacini]], while investigating cholera outbreak in Florence in the late 1854, identified the causative pathogen as a new type of bacterium. He performed autopsies of corpses and made meticulous microscopic examinations of the tissues and body fluids. From feces and [[intestinal mucosa]], he identified many comma-shaped bacilli.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Who first discovered cholera?|url=https://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/firstdiscoveredcholera.html|access-date=2021-04-04|website=www.ph.ucla.edu|archive-date=2021-04-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417111245/http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/firstdiscoveredcholera.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Nardi|first=M. G.|date=1954|title=[Discovery of Vibrio cholerae by Filippo Pacini, of Pistoia, established in the initial phases of microbiological thought and judged after a century]|url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14355829|journal=Minerva Medica|volume=45|issue=102|pages=1024–1029|pmid=14355829|access-date=2021-04-04|archive-date=2022-10-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221005133108/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14355829/|url-status=live}}</ref> Reporting his discovery before the Società Medico-Fisica Fiorentina (Medico-Physician Society of Florence) on 10 December, and published in the 12 December issue of the ''Gazzetta Medica Italiana'' (''Medical Gazette of Italy''), Pacini stated:{{blockquote|Le poche materie del vomito che ho potuto esaminare nel secondo e terzo caso di cholera ... e di più trovai degli ammassi granulosi appianati, simili a quelli che si formano alla superficie delle acque corrotte, quando sono per svilupparsi dei vibrioni; dei quali di fatto ne trovai alcuni del genere ''Bacterium'', mentre la massima parte, per la loro estrema piccolezza, erano stati eliminati con la decantazione del fluido. [From the few samples of vomit that I was able to examine in the second and third cases of cholera ... and in addition I found smoothed granular masses, similar to those which form on the surface of dirty waters, when they are about to develop vibrios; of which in fact I found some of the genus ''Bacterium'', while the greatest part, because of their extreme smallness, had been eliminated with the removal of the liquid.<ref>Fillipo Pacini (1854) [https://books.google.com/books?id=xdtQAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA397 "Osservazioni microscopiche e deduzioni patologiche sul cholera asiatico"] (Microscopic observations and pathological deductions on Asiatic cholera), ''Gazzetta Medica Italiana:  Toscana'', 2nd series, 4(50) :  397–401; 4(51): 405–412. Reprinted (more legibily) as a [https://books.google.com/books?id=F9s_AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1 pamphlet.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231201205632/https://books.google.com/books?id=F9s_AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1 |date=2023-12-01 }}</ref>]}}Pacini thus introduced the name ''vibrioni'' (Latin ''vībro'' means "to move rapidly to and fro, to shake, to agitate"). A [[Catalonia|Catalan]] physician Joaquim Balcells i Pascual also reported such bacterium around the same time.<ref>{{cite web|year=2018|editor=[[Real Academia de la Historia]]|title=Joaquín Balcells y Pasqual|url=http://dbe.rah.es/biografias/18541/joaquin-balcells-y-pasqual|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190708211444/http://dbe.rah.es/biografias/18541/joaquin-balcells-y-pasqual|archive-date=2019-07-08|access-date=2020-08-01|language=es}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|year=2015|editor=[[:ca:Col·legi Oficial de Metges de Barcelona|Col·legi Oficial de Metges de Barcelona]]|title=Joaquim Balcells i Pascual|url=http://www.galeriametges.cat/galeria-fitxa.php?icod=EGMM|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801110910/http://www.galeriametges.cat/galeria-fitxa.php?icod=EGMM|archive-date=2020-08-01|access-date=2020-08-01|language=ca}}</ref> The discovery of the new bacterium was not regarded as medically important as the bacterium was not directly attributed to cholera. Pacini also stated that there was no reason to say that the bacterium caused the disease since he failed to create a pure culture and perform experiments, which was necessary 'to attribute the quality of contagion to cholera'.<ref name=":3" /> The miasma theory was still not ruled out.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Subba Rao|first1=M.|last2=Howard-Jones|first2=N.|date=1978|title=Original observations of Filippo Pacini on vibrio cholera|url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11613633|journal=Bulletin of the Indian Institute of History of Medicine|volume=8|issue=1–4|pages=32–38|pmid=11613633|access-date=2021-04-04|archive-date=2022-03-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220323195612/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11613633/|url-status=live}}</ref>