16 



THE AMEEICAN MONTHLY 



[January, 



single failure, when, on the 6th of 

 July last, three persons from Alsace 

 unexpectedly presented themselves at 

 iny laboratory : Theodore Vone, a 

 grocer of Meissengott, near Schel- 

 stadt, who had been bitten in the arm 

 on the 4th of July by his own dog, 

 became mad ; Joseph Meister, nine 

 years of age, who had been bitten by 

 the same dog at eight o'clock in the 

 morning of the same day, and who, 

 thrown to the ground by the dog, 

 bore the marks of pumerous bites on 

 his hands, legs, and thighs, some of 

 them so deep as to make walking 

 hard for him. The more serious 

 wounds had been cauterized only 

 twelve hours after the accident, or at 

 eight o'clock in the evening of the 

 same day, with phenic acid, by Dr. 

 Weber, of Ville ; the third person, 

 who had not been bitten, was the 

 mother of Joseph Meister. 



' At the autopsy of the dog, which 

 had been killed by its master, we 

 found its stomach filled with hay, 

 straw, and pieces of wood. It was 

 certainly mad. Joseph Meister had 

 been picked up from under it covered 

 with froth and blood. M. Vone had 

 inarked bruises on his arms, but he 

 assiired me that the dog's teeth had 

 not gone through his shirt. As he 

 had nothing to fear, I told him he 

 might go back to Alsace the same 

 day, and he did so ; but I kept little 

 Meister and his mother. 



• The' weekly meeting of the Acad- 

 emy of Sciences took place on the 6th 

 of July. I saw our associate, Dr. 

 Vulpian, there, and told him what 

 had passed. He and Dr. Grancher, 

 Professor in the Ecole de Medecine, 

 had the kindness to come and see little 

 Joseph Meister at once, and ascertain 

 his condition and the number of his 

 wounds, of which thei"e ^vere no less 

 than fourteen. The opinion of these 

 two physicians \vas that, in conse- 

 quence of the severitv and number_of 

 the bites upon him, Joseph Meister 

 w^as almost certain to have hydro- 

 phobia. I then informed them of the 

 new results which I had obtained in 



the study of rabies since the address 

 I had delivered at Copenhagen a year 

 previously. The death of this child 

 seeming inevitable, I decided, not 

 without considerable and deep anxiety, 

 as you may imagine, to try upon hiin 

 the method with which I had had 

 constant success on dogs.' 



o 



Postal Club Boxes. — Box W'~ 

 was received November 30th, con- 

 taining some very interesting prepara- 

 tions from Camden microscopists. 



1. Stained fern frond. J. L. De 

 La Cour. The staining is verv well 

 done, by the process given by Mr. 

 A. C. Cole. The dried frond is 

 bleached in Labarraque's solution 

 and transferred to alcohol of 50/0. 

 It is then prepared with a solution of 

 acetate of alumina, stained with car- 

 mine and washed in acidulated water. 

 It is thus stained red throughout, but 

 by soaking in a solution of iodine 

 green (3 grains to i ounce of alcohol) 

 and washing in absolute alcohol, it 

 becomes double stained, red and 

 green, in a very beautiful manner. 



2. Head of horse-fly. A. P. 

 Brown. 



3. Amphipleura in three media. 

 C. H. Kain. Specimens mounted 

 in Canada balsam, stvrax, and balsam 

 of tolu. to show the relative visibility 

 of the frustules and their markings. 

 The styrax seems to have some ad- 

 vantage over the balsam tolu, but the 

 latter is decidedly superior to Canada 

 balsam in making the markings visi- 

 ble. 



4. Section of blood-root. C. H. 

 Kain. 



5. Cyclops with Epistylis. C. 

 Bowden. A female with a fine col- 

 ony of vorticellas, Epistylis (^digi- 

 talis?^ ^ attached to its back. 



6. Bacillus tubercjilosis. M. F. 

 Middleton. 



Box V" was received Dec. 9th. 

 It contained a number of very inter- 

 esting slides, two or three worthy of 

 especial mention : — 



I . Longitudinal a n d transverse 

 sections of twigs from the stomach 



