16 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [January, 



any of our readers, and take pleasure in answering them so far as possible. Let 

 all our friends, even the beginners, feel free to make inquiries. When you 

 think the Journal is not popular enough in tone ask some popular ques- 

 tions. If you want it more technical ask such questions. Let us know your 

 needs from time to time. 



Hydrophobia. — This disease and its cure by Pasteur's method must in- 

 terest every biological reader by its meril^ and every student of psychology 

 by the various attitudes of mind with regard to it. Those who attach great 

 weight to authority accept at once the previous work of Pasteur as a sufficient 

 guarantee in the present instance of his having reached valid methods for the 

 treatment of hydrophobia. Others more skeptically inclined find the difficul- 

 ties too great, and are the extremists of unbelief. If one may judge from the 

 editorial remarks of various journalists, there are but two courses — consent to 

 Pasteur's method and its entire rejection. Those who accept the former po- 

 sition and strongly argue it received a very strong accession of support when 

 the English Commission, which investigated the method of M. Pasteur, re- 

 turned its favorable report. And that decision should, very properly, have 

 great weight in the judgment we form of the merits of the question. But while 

 the affirmative is thus being strengthened the negative receives apparently 

 strong support from certain failures to cure the disease. And the argument 

 of facts seems to contradict M. Pasteur. Then the negative asserts that Pas- 

 teur's so-called cures were not genuine cases, and that the patients would not 

 have died even had no treatment been adopted. Here the negative has a strong 

 position, for it is obviously less easy to show that a man would have died had 

 the cure not been attempted than to prove that he has died in spite of treatment 

 by Pasteur. And yet in this latter case the proof is not as clear as it appears, 

 for the question is not did the man die after a cure was attempted, but in any 

 particular case did the experimenter have a fair chance ; did his medicine 

 really combat the trouble under possible conditions and fail to cure it? The 

 argument is brought forward by a writer in a recent medical journal that the 

 cure is not able to operate in the case of hydrophobia, because in the inocu- 

 lation method for small-pox the inoculation must precede the exposure to 

 disease, while here the inoculation is practised after the exposure. This ar- 

 gument only places the Pasteur inoculation among cures and takes them out 

 of the list of preventives ; it does not argue against its efficacy. 



The cry against Pasteur is very much out of place in a scientific periodical. 

 To the unlearned every act of a skilled performer, whether it be with the mi- 

 croscope, the test-tube, or even the printing press, has an element of wonder 

 which is psychologically much the same as the reference of unknown things 

 to magical powers or to the supernatural. M. Pasteur may not win our en^ 

 tire consent to his system, and there may be nvmierous cases of real or ap- 

 parent failure among the cures he has attempted, but we shall not, therefore, 

 denounce him and his studies. Is he not an honest seeker after truth, and 

 shall we, because his line of search is novel, refuse him credit.^ Science is 

 not furthered by attacking those whose talents and studies fit them for inves- 

 tigations beyond the customary range. The follies of life do not deserve the 

 money ^ve spend in their celebration if we deny to investigators the funds to 

 prosecute expensive but important researches. Both the successes and fail- 

 ures of M. Pasteur deserve fair consideration, and a suspension of judgment, 

 so far as concerns the final acceptance of the method, until it has been suffi- 

 ciently tested. His past history, as well as the numerous apparent successes 

 he has had, justify this recommendation. 



