PASTEUR'S RESEARCHES IN GERM-LIFE. 



95 



virus ; and three days subsequently more than two hundred persons 

 assembled to witness the result. The " shout of admiration," men- 

 tioned by M. Radot, was a natural outburst under the circumstances. 

 Of twenty-five sheep which had not been protected by vaccination, 

 twenty-one were already dead, and the remaining ones were dying. 

 The twenty-five vaccinated sheep, on the contrary, were "in full 

 health and gayety." In the unvaccinated cows intense fever was pro- 

 duced, while the prostration was so great that they were unable to eat. 

 Tumors were also formed at the points of inoculation. In the vacci- 

 nated cows no tumors were formed ; they exhibited no fever, nor even 

 an elevation of temperature, while their power of feeding was unim- 

 paired. No wonder that "breeders of cattle overwhelmed Pasteur 

 with applications for vaccine." At the end of 1881 close upon thirty- 

 four thousand animals had been vaccinated, while the number rose in 

 1883 to nearly five hundred thousand. 



M. Pasteur is now exactly sixty-two years of age ; but his energy 

 is unabated. At the end of this volume we are informed that he has 

 already taken up and examined with success, as far as his experiments 

 have reached, the terrible and mysterious disease of rabies or hydro- 

 phobia. Those who hold all communicable diseases to be of parasitic 

 origin, include, of course, rabies among the number of those produced 

 and propagated by a living contagium. From his first contact with 

 the disease Pasteur showed his accustomed penetration. If we see a 

 man mad, we at once refer his madness to the state of his brain. It is 

 somewhat singular that in the face of this fact the virus of a mad dog 

 should be referred to the animal's saliva. The saliva is, no doubt, in- 

 fected, but Pasteur soon proved the real seat and empire of the dis- 

 order to be the nervous system. 



The parasite of rabies had not been securely isolated when M. Ra- 

 dot finished his task. But last May, at the instance of M. Pasteur, a 

 commission was appointed, by the Minister of Public Instruction in 

 France, to examine and report upon the results which he had up to 

 that time obtained. A preliminaiy report, issued to appease public 

 impatience, reached me before I quitted Switzerland this year. It in- 

 spires the sure and certain hope that, as regards the attenuation of the 

 rabic virus, and the rendering of an animal, by inoculation, proof 

 against attack, the success of M. Pasteur is assured. The commis- 

 sion, though hitherto extremely active, is far from the end of its 

 labors ; but the results obtained so far may be thus summed up : 



Of six dogs unprotected by vaccination, three succumbed to the 

 bites of a dog in a furious state of madness. 



Of eight unvaccinated dogs, six succumbed to the intravenous in- 

 oculation of rabic matter. 



Of five unvaccinated dogs, all succumbed to inoculation, by tre- 

 panning, of the brain. 



Finally, of three-and-twenty vaccinated dogs, not one was attacked 



