HYDROPHOBIA. 323 



in the hind legs, then gradually in the muscles through- 

 out the body ; other nervous symptoms appear, the animal 

 becomes unconscious and comatose, and about the tenth day 

 after inoculation it dies. The cord is taken out as soon 

 after death as possible, and great care is exercised to prevent 

 organisms, septic, putrefactive, or any others, from finding 

 their way to the surface of the cord, which as soon as re- 

 moved is suspended by a sterilized silk thread in the flask, 

 the air of which, having been rendered extremely dry by the 

 potash, now absorbs a very large proportion of moisture 

 from the cord, and prevents it from undergoing putrefactive 

 change. Originally the cord was left in this flask from twenty- 

 four hours to fifteen days, the material from the cord that had 

 been left for fifteen days having almost or completely lost its 

 virulence, the one day cord remaining nearly as virulent as 

 a cord that had undergone no desiccation. 



On the 26th of October, 1885, Pasteur described this 

 method to the French Academy of Sciences. He showed 

 that by inoculating animals on ten successive days with 

 fragments of different cords, each beaten up with twice its 

 volume of sterilized bouillon, commencing with the weakest 

 virus, and continuing until he had used an emulsion from 

 the cord that had been exposed only two or three days to 

 the dried air, and kept pretty constantly at a temperature of 

 1 7 or 1 8 C., they were protected against hydrophobia, even 

 when extremely virulent virus was afterwards injected sub- 

 cutaneously, or into the membranes of the brain. Of fifty dogs 

 so treated (no two exactly in the same way), every one was 

 refractory to the disease in proportion to the theoretical 

 degree of protection that had been given ; such protection 

 lasting apparently for at least two years, and probably more. 



Having obtained such success with dogs the next step 

 was to protect patients who had already been bitten by 

 mad dogs or wolves. The first human being so inoculated 

 against hydrophobia was a little boy, Joseph Meister, aged 

 nine years, who, on the 4th of July, 1885, was bitten so 

 severely on the arms and legs by a mad dog, that it was 

 with difficulty the poor child could walk. He was at- 

 tended to by a doctor who cauterized the worst of the 

 wounds with carbolic acid, but not until twelve hours after 

 the child had been bitten. As the dog was undoubtedly 

 mad, and as there was little chance of the survival of the 



