90 Kansas Academu of Science. 



No doubt the memory of a rabid wolf that attacked and 

 killed a host of Pasteur's associates when he was a child of 

 eight years impelled him to begin its study. He soon demon- 

 strated that the poison introduced by the diseased mad dog 

 located itself in the brain and cord, and that by making emul- 

 sions of the central nervous system of dogs dead from rabies, 

 and inoculating the emulsion into the brains of normal dogs, 

 the latter would contract the disease in fourteen days. Like- 

 wise he gave the disease to rabbits, and further learned that 

 after successive inoculations of rabbits the infectious agent in 

 hydrophobia became ever so much more virulent. By drying 

 the spinal cord or brain removed from the rabid rabbit, the 

 virulence would decrease daily until the fourteenth day, when 

 it would entirely disappear. 



With this knowledge gained after much patient study, Pas- 

 teur began his famous production of immunity. He made 

 emulsions of the fourteen days' dried rabid cord, now innocu- 

 ous, and injected it into a normal dog. The next day an emul- 

 sion of thirteen days' dried rabid cord was inoculated into this 

 dog. On the third day a twelve-day cord was likewise in- 

 jected, and so on until the dog had received fourteen injections 

 of cords varying from fourteen days old to one day old. 

 Each succeeding inoculation was thus more virulent than the 

 preceding. It was soon demonstrated that a dog so treated 

 was impervious to hydrophobia. The most rabid dogs were 

 permitted to lacerate these treated dogs, without effect. Pas- 

 teur, in March, 1885, announced to the scientific world that he 

 had succeeded in producing dogs immune to hydrophobia, and 

 on July 6, following, little Joseph Meister was bitten. Pasteur 

 utilized his method of producing immunity in dogs and began 

 the famous treatment of the boy. Madame Pasteur's account 

 of his conduct during this experiment is most interesting. 

 Almost wrecked with apprehension, he continued the treat- 

 ment while little Jo played with the rabbits and guinea pigs in 

 the laboratory. The boy did not develop the disease, and be- 

 came the first successfully treated patient for hydrophobia in 

 history. 



As knowledge becomes more or less universal, the contribu- 

 tions of Pasteur will be generally heralded as the most price- 

 less of all the contributions made by that galaxy of great men 

 to whom the world is indebted for its welfare and progress. 



