5o6 ON THE INTERDEPENDENCE OF SCIENCE 



have it done, they are fined one mark. If this does not prove effectual, the fine 

 is doubled : and if even the double penalty should not prove efficacious, a second 

 doubling of it would follow, but, as my informant remarked, it is very seldom 

 that it is called for. The result is that small-pox is a matter of extreme rarity 

 in that country ; while it is almost unknown in the huge German army, in con- 

 sequence of the rule that every soldier is revaccinated on entering the service. 

 Whatever view our Legislature may take on this question, one thing seems to 

 me clear : that it will be the duty of Government to encourage by every available 

 means the use of calf lymph, so as to exclude the possibility of the communication 

 of any human disease to the child, and to institute such efficient inspection of 

 vaccination institutes as shall ensure careful antiseptic arrangements, and so 

 prevent contamination by extraneous microbes. If this were done, ' conscien- 

 tious objections ' would cease to have any rational basis. At the same time, the 

 administration of the regulations on vaccination should be transferred (as 

 advised by the Commissioners) to competent sanitary authorities. 



But to return to Pasteur. In 1880 he entered upon the study of that terrible 

 but then most obscure disease, hydrophobia or rabies, which from its infective 

 character he was sure must be of microbic origin, although no micro-organism 

 could be detected in it. He early demonstrated the new pathological fact that 

 the virus had its essential seat in the nervous system. This proved the key to 

 his success in this subject. One result that flowed from it has been the cause of 

 unspeakable consolation to many. The foolish practice is still too prevalent of 

 killing the dog that has bitten any one, on the absurd notion that, if it were 

 mad, its destruction would prevent the occurrence of hydrophobia in the person 

 bitten. The idea of the bare possibility of the animal having been so affected 

 causes an agony of suspense during the long weeks or months of possible incuba- 

 tion of the disease. Very serious nervous symptoms aping true hydrophobia 

 have been known to result from the terror thus inspired. Pasteur showed that 

 if a little of the brain or spinal cord of a dog that had been really mad was inocu- 

 lated in an appropriate manner into a rabbit, it infallibly caused rabies in that 

 animal in a few days. If, therefore, such an experiment was made with a nega- 

 tive result, the conclusion might be drawn with certainty that the dog had been 

 healthy. It is perhaps right that I should say that the inoculation is painlessly 

 done under an anaesthetic, and that in the rabbit rabies does not assume the 

 violent form that it does in the dog, but produces gradual loss of power with 

 little if any suffering. 



This is the more satisfactory because rabbits in which the disease has been 

 thus artificially induced are employed in carrying out what was Pasteur's greatest 

 triumph, the preventive treatment of hydrophobia in the human subject. We 



