RiiJr'ORT OF PASTEUR INSTITUTE. Ill 



REPOET OF PASTEUR INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 



MICHIGAN. 



THOMAS B. COOLEY. 



It is now just a year since we began giving tlie Pastenr treatment 

 here at the University. During that time we have had under treatment 

 thirty-eight patients, the last of whom has not yet completed his time. 

 Of these thirty-eight persons, thirty-seven were from Michigan and one 

 from Kentucky. Our Michigan patients have all come from the south- 

 ern portion of the State, and a majority of them from Detroit and its 

 suburbs, where rabies has been quite prevalent. 



In addition to administering treatment to persons who have been 

 bitten, it has been a part of our work to make diagnostic inoculations 

 from animals suspected to have had the disease, and while the number 

 of such cases referred to us, aside from those where the animal had 

 bitten persons, has been surprisingly small and out of proportion to 

 the number of outbreaks of rabies known to have occurred, the fact 

 that we had positive results in some recent cases from quite widely 

 separated localities, shows that the disease is not yet stamped out, and 

 is ready to spread again at a favorable season. 



Another and an important part of our work, of which I am sorry to 

 say that I have kept no record, has been the giving of advice to people 

 who had been bitten by animals, and who were alarmed over the possi- 

 bility of rabies. The number of such cases where I was able to assure 

 the patient that there was no reason to fear rabies and no necessity for 

 undergoing treatment has certainly been greater than the number actu- 

 ally treated, and a proportion of these, if they had not had an institute 

 near at hand, would surely have gone to some one of the other institutes 

 in the country, and possibly have been put through a needless and ex- 

 pensive treatment. I found it very difficult to persuade some of these 

 people that they were in no danger; in one case I was obliged to refuse 

 outright to treat the child of a man upon whom my assurances had had 

 no effect. We have exercised the greatest care not to take any patients 

 unless there seemed really to be good reason to fear rabies, and in the 

 two cases I shall speak of later, where our animal inoculations gave 

 negative results, treatment was begun before the diagnosis by inocula- 

 tion could be made, solely on account of the insistence of the patients 

 or their friends. 



The institute here was of course established primarily in order that 

 the people of this State may have free treatment when it is necessary, 

 but it would seem only natural that we should get also cases from north- 

 ern Ohio and Indiana, inasmuch as we are nearer to them than any other 

 institute, and I think it very probable that when the existence of an 

 institute here becomes more generally known, we shall get such cases; in 

 fact, it seems likelv that we should have had some of them before now if 

 we had thought it proper to solicit patronage in the way that some of 

 the purely commercial institutes do. 



