comma bacillus

American  

noun

1. a curved, rod-shaped bacterium, Vibrio cholerae, causing Asiatic cholera.

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comma bacillus British  

noun

1. a comma-shaped bacterium, Vibrio comma, that causes cholera in man: family Spirillaceae

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Etymology

Origin of comma bacillus

First recorded in 1885–90

Example Sentences

Pacini had discovered the “germ”, but it was not until the German physician Robert Koch himself discovered the comma bacillus in Egypt in 1883 that germ theory became popularised.

From The Guardian • May 1, 2020

This disease is caused by the presence of a microbe, known as the "comma bacillus," which manufactures a virulent poison, called a ptomaine.

From The Royal Road to Health by Tyrrell, Charles Alfred

The rooms were closed for twenty-four hours, and tubes containing different proto-organisms, and particularly the comma bacillus made known by Koch, were placed therein, along with other tubes containing vaccine lymph.

From Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 by Various

The comma bacillus of Koch, and the typhoid fever germ of Eberth, are especially destroyed in normal gastric juice.

From Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 by Various

Remarks.—But for the assurance of the tale itself that Hobyahs are no more, Mr. Batten's portraits of them would have convinced me that they were the bogles or spirits of the comma bacillus.

From More English Fairy Tales by Batten, John Dickson