]i'cat/iiT, U'a/rr and Disease. 23 



practiced, and found it varied between 15 and 50 per cent. 

 He assumes, however, 15 per cent as the correct figure. 



In Table A of his statistics, which includes onl\- ])ersons 

 known to have been bitten by dogs undoubtedly rabid, the 

 figures show the total mortality to be a little over one per 

 cent. Before Pasteur's treatment was applied, the mortal- 

 it}' among people l)itten in the face was 80 per cent. In 

 the years from 18S5 to 1889, 593 persons bitten in the face 

 were inoculated at the Pasteur Institute. The total mortality 

 is 2.23 per cent. 



Tetanus or lock jaw is a disease of which we all have, very 

 justly, a horror. It is found to be an infectious disease, and 

 to be produced by a bacillus, which is found in and on the 

 soil — on manure piles and in staljles, and is very widely 

 diffused over the globe. An active principle, called tetanin, 

 has been produced by cultivation, that, injected into animals, 

 will produce symptoms of tetanus. Attenuations of this have 

 been used, and successfully, in curing the disease in animals. 

 These examples are enough to prove the relations which these 

 impurities of the atmosphere, etc., bear to disease, as well as 

 the great advance made in antidoting such deadly poisons as 

 these disea.ses or bacilli bring with them. The discovery of 

 these disease - producing active principles has eliminated 

 almost entirely the idea of cold as a cause of different dis- 

 eases, as, for instance, in the case of tetanus. That element 

 of weather has not near as much to do with producing disease 

 as formerly supposed. 



Pneumonia, of which there is so much dread in every family 

 nowadays, is now known to be an infectious disease, though 

 it is not definitely settled as to the direct infecting agent. 

 The popular and even professional explanation has been that 

 cold was its sufficient cause. That, however, can be only a 

 predisposing cause. The true one is a microbe, or probably 

 two, and their products. They are nearly always present in 

 the secretions of the mouth in a harmless condition. The}- are 

 in a state of masterly inactivity until the sy.stem is prepared by 

 some fault in our habits — indiscretions in diet, until certain 

 antoxic or self-poisoning states arise ; some depression from 

 sudden cold and humidity which the system resents by chilly 

 sensations. Then the soil is ready for this very active 



