314 BACTERIA IN INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 



to admit the essential etiological role of this micro- 

 coccus whenever it is demonstrated that a pure 

 culture introduced into the urethra of man, or into 

 the conjunctival sac of young rabbits, is followed 

 by a specific inflammation, as shown by the viru- 

 lent character of the purulent discharge which 

 attends it. 



HYDROPHOBIA. That illustrious men are not 

 always infallible, is shown by the error into which 

 Pasteur fell in ascribing to a micrococcus com- 

 monly found in human saliva, the power of pro- 

 ducing hydrophobia. The experiments which led 

 to this conclusion, which was communicated to the 

 French Academy in 1881, 1 were made with the 

 saliva of a child, five years of age, which died from 

 hydrophobia in one of the hospitals of Paris, De- 

 cember llth, 1880. This child had been bitten in 

 the face, a month previously, by a mad dog. Four 

 hours after death, a little buccal mucus, gathered 

 by means of a brush, was injected into two rabbits. 

 These rabbits were found dead December 13th. 

 Other rabbits were inoculated with the blood of 

 these, and death occurred even more rapidly. 

 Successive inoculations, repeated many times, 

 gave the same result. The rabbits showed at 

 the autopsy the same lesions. (These will be de- 

 scribed in the account given of induced septicaemia 

 in the rabbit, p. 359.) 



According to Pasteur, death is produced by 



1 Comptes rendus, XCII. p. 159. 



