434 



NATURE 



[Sept. 8, 1887 



cord which had been dried for only twenty-four hours. 

 Of course the introduction of such virulent matter as 

 this had no effect on systems already armed by the pre- 

 vious inoculations of antidotal substance. It is greatly 

 to be regretted that owing to general ignorance of 

 this fundamental principle of M. Pasteur's method the 

 many and violent discussions upon his treatment have 

 been rendered absolutely useless. We trust, therefore, 

 we may be excused for having dwelt thus at length 

 upon it. 



As soon as M. Pasteur had demonstrated to the French 

 Academy that he could secure the protection of dogs by 

 injecting them in the manner above described, he was 

 induced to attempt the prevention of the disease in man 

 by similar injections after the bite. This attempt soon 

 developed into a regular practice, from the numbers of 

 patients who flocked to Paris seeking treatment in con- 

 sequence of the unhappy prevalence of rabies in those 

 European countries which had neglected to provide for 

 its easy extermination by suitable legislation. 



From the Report of the Committee commissioned by 

 the Local Government Board to inquire into M. Pasteur's 

 treatment, it would appear, as might have been expected, 

 that a comparatively large proportion of M. Pasteur's 

 patients were bitten by dogs which were not rabid ; but it 

 is also evident from the same Report that when deduc- 

 tions have been made for these cases the death-rate 

 among the remainder was far lower than even the lowest 

 estimate ever formed of the mortality from hydrophobia 

 among persons bitten by reputedly rabid dogs. 



While this gratifying result was accomplished, it was at 

 the same time evident that the method was by no means 

 perfected, and the lamented death of Lord Doneraile 

 (from the bite of a tame fox which had been infected by 

 a dog), affords an illustration of this, for the deceased 

 nobleman was subjected to treatment within a few days 

 after receiving the virus. But while the inoculations did 

 not prevent a fatal issue, there seems good reason to 

 believe that they notably modified the distressing features 

 of the malady, for in a brief account before us it is stated 

 that the inability to swallow fluids only appeared twenty- 

 four hours before death, and there was at no time spasm 

 produced by swallowing moist solid food. The same 

 gratifying modification appears to have also been 

 present in another case that recently was observed in St. 

 George's Hospital. Should this modification prove to be 

 general, M. Pasteur will have deprived the malady of its 

 worst tortures. 



Before leaving the consideration of this part of the 

 subject it is to be noted that the virulent opposition with 

 which M. Pasteur's efforts in the cause of humanity were 

 met went to the length of charging him with having 

 actually caused the death of some of his patients by his 

 inoculations. This charge, though not supported by any 

 exact evidence whatever, was also inquired into by the 

 above-mentioned Committee appointed by the Local 

 Government Board. Indeed, they had a special oppor- 

 tunity of doing so, for one of the laboratory servants of 

 Mr. Horsley (who carried out the experiments for the 

 Committee), being bitten most severely by a rabid cat, 

 died six weeks later (the usual incubation period of the 

 disease) with the paralytic form of hydrophobia rather 

 than the excitable form. Rabbits inoculated from the 



spinal cord of this man died with the shortest possible 

 period of incubation. As the Committee point out, this 

 would seem to have lent colour to the idea that the 

 inoculations themselves were fatally virulent, had not 

 similar instances of short incubation periods been occa- 

 sionally observed to follow inoculation from similarly 

 rabid animals. Stress was also laid upon the mode in 

 which the man was inoculated — namely, by what M. 

 Pasteur called the intensive treatment, and which he 

 adopted in cases of very severe injury. But the whole 

 question was dismissed by M. Pasteur altering this mode 

 of treatment in order that there should not even be the 

 semblance of the possibility of such an accident. 



It seems to us that, in England at any rate, there is 

 quite another view to be taken of this question of rabies 

 and its scientific prevention — in fact, that its complete 

 extermination should be ensured in preference to efforts 

 to treat it after it has attacked anyone. 



The data upon which legislation should be based are 

 now fortunately at hand. The House of Lords recently 

 appointed a Select Committee, under the chairmanship 

 of Lord Cranbrook, the President of the Privy Council, 

 to inquire into the whole question of the social bearing 

 of the disease, and the means which have been adopted 

 to get rid of it in foreign countries. The Report of that 

 Committee is published, and we have been permitted in 

 addition to inspect the evidence laid before it. This 

 evidence is a most instructive comment upon the manner 

 in which the facts of modern science are sometimes treated 

 as being of only equal value with the most absurd mis- 

 statements dictated by charlatanism and abandoned self- 

 interest. 



As a whole, however, the Report is one with which we 

 have good reason to be satisfied in many ways, for it 

 recognizes the great value of the simplest means of pre- 

 venting the spread of the disease, viz. the muzzle. 



Those of us who remember the senseless anti-vivisec- 

 tionist opposition which met the police edict enforcing 

 this salutary measure in London, will not be surprised of 

 course to find in the evidence before the Committee the 

 same thing repeated, but, as was inevitably the case, 

 deprived this time of all its deceptive influence. 



For the experience of the working of the muzzle in 

 London, where it brought the number of deaths from 

 hydrophobia down from 27 in 1885 to o in the last quarter 

 of 1886, and indeed we believe we may also say the first 

 six months of 1887; the experience of its working in 

 Nottingham, where the cases of rabies varied directly in 

 number according to the way in which the muzzle regula- 

 tions were enforced ; of Prussia, where the disease is almost 

 extinct, being one-fiftieth part of that in Great Britain ; of 

 Scandinavia, where it is'absolutely extinct— all disproved 

 the baseless theories and assertions of those who, under 

 the guise of pseudo-zoophilism, endeavour to perpetuate 

 in man and the lower animals the tormentsof this horrible 

 disease. As will doubtless have been already surmised, 

 the whole of this factious opposition to the above-men- 

 tioned beneficent legislation came from the small clique 

 of anti-vivisectionists who were unhappily represented 

 on the Committee itself in two of its members, viz. Lords 

 Mount-Temple and Onslow. 



The Lords' recommendation of the muzzle, however^ 

 is marred by one defect, and that a very serious one. 



