410 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



I am demonstrating this year that dogs can be vaccinated, or 

 made refractory to rabies after they have been bitten by mad 

 dogs. 



*'I have not yet dared to treat human beings after bites from 

 rabid dogs ; but the time is not far off, and I am much inclined 

 to begin by myself — inoculating myself with rabies, and then 

 arresting the consequences; for I am beginning to feel very 

 sure of my results." 



Pasteur gave more details three days later, in a letter to his 

 son, then Secretary of the French Embassy at the Quirinal— 



**The experiments before the Rabies Commission were 

 resumed on March 10; they are now being carried out, and 

 the Commission has already held six sittings; the seventh will 

 take place to-day. 



"As I only submit to it results which I look upon as 

 acquired, this gives me a surplus of work to do; for those 

 control experiments are added to those I am now carrying out. 

 For I am continuing my researches, trying to discover new 

 principles, and hardening myself by habit and by increased 

 conviction in order to attempt preventive inoculations on man 

 after a bite. 



"The Commission's experiments have led to no result so 

 far, for, as you know, weeks have to pass before any results 

 occur. But no untoward incident has occurred up to now ; and 

 if all continues equally well, the Commission's second report 

 will be as favorable as that of last year, which left nothing to 

 be desired. 



"I am equally satisfied with my new experiments in this 

 difficult study. Perhaps practical application on a large scale 

 may not be far off. ..." 



In May, everything at Villeneuve I'Etang was ready for the 

 reception of sixty dogs. Fifty of them, already made refrac- 

 tory to bites or rabic inoculation, were successively accommo- 

 dated in the immense kennel, where each had his cell and his 

 experiment number. They had been made refractory by leing 

 inoculated with fragments of medulla, which had hung for a 

 fortnight in a phial, and of which the virulence was extin- 

 guished, after v/hieh further inoculations had been made, 

 gradually increasing in virulence until the highest degree of it 

 had again been reached. 



All those dogs, which were to be periodically taken back to 

 Parif? for inoculations or bite tests, in order to see what was 



