March 8, 1888] 



NATURE 



441 



coming within its reach. The complete metamorphosis 

 of the usual temper of the animal is of course only to be 

 explained by profound mental disturbance, exactly as seen 

 in the human being. We have alluded to the mode of 

 transmission of the disease— viz. through the saliva. This 

 mode was put to direct experiment by an infected animal 

 being placed with a healthy one which had been isolated 

 for some time, and the incubation period was determined 

 in this instance to be nineteen days, the comparative 

 shortness of the period being no doubt due to the very 

 numerous points of inoculation. An interesting and con- 

 firmatory circumstance of the reality of this method of 

 transmission was afforded by the fact that so long as the 

 bucks retained their horns they were able to literally stave 

 off infection, but as soon as these natural means of 

 defence fell off at the usual periods, both sexes suffered 

 alike. 



The mode of death seems in all cases to have been ulti- 

 mately cardiac failure, which supervened frequently before 

 the customary coma, the final stage of paralysis, was deve- 

 loped. Relatively, syncope occurred much more frequently 

 than it does in the human subject, and a fortiori than it 

 does in the dog, a circumstance explicable by the neces- 

 sarily extremely fatiguing nature of the fits of excitement 

 to which deer are evidently specially liable in the early 

 development of the disease. According to Prof. Horsley's 

 pathological report, both macroscopic and microscopic 

 appearances of the affected tissues revealed the usual 

 lesions which are symptomatic of rabies. This last fact 

 is a healthy sign of scientific progress, for any layman 

 who has sought to obtain from books or verbal statements 

 made by those justly recognized as baing qualified to 

 speak with authority on this subject must have been dis- 

 appointed with the uncertainty of knowledge which has 

 prevailed respecting the morbid anatomy of rabies up to 

 the present time. The obscurity which existed on this 

 point was aggravated no doubt by the absurd popular 

 superstitions connected with the disease, and by the failure 

 to recognize that it was simply a very severe kind of one 

 of the acute specific maladies. From the latter cause 

 especially has confusion arisen, since it will be found that 

 previous records of the post-mortem appearances fal- 

 laciously comprehend the examination of animals dying 

 at all possible stages of the malady. But now we know 

 these points accurately ; and as in this particular case the 

 subject has been so thoroughly worked up, there will be 

 scarcely any excuse for the disease escaping immediate 

 recognition and adequate treatment. 



Here we cannot help pointing out what a very grave 

 injury is inflicted on the public by the vexatious operation 

 of the so-called Vivisection Act, which prevents the 

 veterinary inspector from at once resorting to M. Pasteur's 

 admirably simple and conclusive method of testing the 

 real condition of any animal killed under the suspicion of 

 rabies. Under the present regime valuable time is lost, 

 and risk incurred of the inoculative material becoming 

 useless from decomposition, &c., by reason of his being 

 compelled to forward it to some such institution as the 

 Brown for examination. The very valuable observation 

 recently pubhshed by M. Pasteur's assistant Dr. Roux, 

 that the immersion of the tissue in a mixture of glycerine 

 and water prevents septic change, but does not mitigate 

 the influence of the virus, to a slight extent obviates part 

 of the difficulties and inconvenience just noted, but the 

 anomaly still remains that, while the immense value of 

 the experimental test has received the full recogni- 

 tion of the recent Committee of the House of Lords, 

 the law does not permit it to be used except in one, or at 

 the outside two places in Great Britain, which have with 

 the usual difficulties and obstruction succeeded in obtain- 

 ing the necessary permission. No one perhaps supposes 

 that the benefits which science offers to the public will 

 ever be received with anything like adequate acknowledg- 

 ment of the difficulties, and it may be dangers, which 



have attended this or that particular discovery. But we 

 think that it cannot be recognized by the mass of the 

 people who actually or theoretically direct the Legislature 

 by their votes, that, while they eagerly reap the benefits 

 of the harvest of science, at the same time they permit 

 that harvest to be choked by the tares of legislative 

 obstruction, and thus very greatly diminish the profits 

 which would otherwise be theirs. 



Just as we are much behind other nations in the 

 foundation of technical instruction, so we are being fast 

 outstripped in the provision for means for the scientific 

 investigation of matters which, like the one we are now 

 considering, greatly concern the public welfare. We 

 believe it to be a fact that at the present moment neither 

 of the two great Government Departments which are 

 concerned in the scientific arrest of national disease, viz. 

 the Privy Council and the Local Government Board, have 

 any laboratory whatever at their disposal, and conse- 

 quently are obliged to seek the necessary accommodation 

 in private institutions ; or, to put it in plain language, the 

 Government is not ashamed to get its public work done 

 by the favour of private means. The Berlin Laboratory 

 and the Pasteur Institute should serve as the kind of 

 example which a statesman whose desire for the improve- 

 ment of the country and the people is not a question of 

 votes but of genuine interest might study with advantage. 



Those gentlemen, unfortunately few in number, who 

 represent science at the present moment in Parliament, 

 would have a large field of good work open to them if they 

 attempted to reform this state of affairs by adjusting the 

 advantages and assistance offered by science to the real 

 needs of the nation. At present the actual opinion of the 

 scientific world on any subject of special interest is 

 usually only extracted with difficulty by evidence before 

 a Select Committee. It would be very easy for the 

 scientific members of the House to concentrate their 

 force by previous meeting and organization, and so to 

 give weight to that side in a debate which was truly 

 working for the best solution of any national problem 

 involving health and disease. In former years, the 

 opinion of unscientific persons has been sought on the 

 subject of rabies as being of equal weight with the assured 

 observations of scientific experts. This lamentable state 

 of things has led to the present condition of our legislation 

 against this disease, under which the malady is but 

 temporarily, if readily, stamped out in one district alone ; 

 this same district becoming infected again from neigh- 

 bouring parts of the country as soon as the regulations 

 are withdrawn. There is no doubt from the minutes of 

 the Lords Committee on Rabies, that the Report of that 

 Committee was drafted in this unfortunate manner owing 

 to the influence of Lords Mount-Temple and Onslow, 

 who, in their speeches and writings, have afforded 

 numerous evidences of their complete want of scientific 

 knowledge of the nature of the disease, and who, con- 

 sequently, have failed to grasp the most obvious way in 

 which it can be extirpated — namely, the universal applica- 

 tion of preventive legislation. Mistakes of this kind, it 

 seems to us, would be utterly prevented by combined 

 action of the scientific members of either House, and if, 

 as is sometimes our unfortunate duty, we have to chronicle 

 ill-advised measures of suppositiously scientific officialism, 

 let us hope they will not have passed out into law without 

 a strenuous protest from the united voice of " our repre- 

 sentatives." 



THE COMING OF AGE OF THE ''JOURNAL OF 

 ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY." 



D 



URING the past summer there was established (as 

 our readers have been informed), under the title of 

 the " Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland," 

 a new brotherhood of anatomists ; and the adoption by 



