408 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



death, to strangle, suffocate, bleed to death, or in any other way 

 murder individuals suffering from rabies, hydrophobia, or any 

 disease causing fits, convulsions, furious and dangerous mad- 

 ness ; all necessary precautions against them being taken by 

 families or public authorities." 



In 1819, newspapers related the death of an unfortunate 

 hydrophobe, smothered between two mattresses; it was said a 

 propos of this murder that "it is the doctor's duty to repeat 

 that this disease cannot be transmitted from man to man, and 

 that there is therefore no danger in nursing hydrophobia 

 patients." Though old and fantastic remedies were still in 

 vogue in remote country places, cauterization was the most 

 frequently employed; if the wounds were somewhat deep, it 

 was recommended to use long, sharp and pointed needles, and 

 to push them well in, even if the wound was on the face. 



One of Pasteur's childish recollections (it happened in 

 October, 1831) was the impression of terror produced through- 

 out the Jura by the advent of a rabid wolf who went biting 

 men and beasts on his way. Pasteur had seen an Arboisian of 

 the name of Nicole being cauterized with a red-hot iron at 

 the smithy near his father's house. The persons who had 

 been bitten on the hands and head succumbed to hydro- 

 phobia, some of them amidst horrible sufferings; there were 

 eight victims in the immediate neighbourhood. Nicole was 

 saved. For years the whole region remained in dread of that 

 mad wolf. 



The long period of incubation encouraged people to hope 

 that some preventive means might be found, instead of the 

 painful operation of cauterization ; some doctors attempted 

 inoculating another poison, a viper's venom for instance, to 

 neutralize the rabic virus needless to say with fatal results. 

 In 1852 a reward was promised by the Government to the 

 finder of a remedy against hydrophobia ; all the old quackeries 

 came to light again, even Galen's remedy of cray-fish eyes ! 



Bouchardat, who had to report to the Academy on these 

 remedies, considered them of no value whatever; his con- 

 clusion was that cauterization was the only prophylactic treat- 

 ment of hydrophobia. 



Such was also Bouley's opinion, eighteen years later, when 

 he wrote that the object to keep in view was the quickest 

 possible destruction of the tissues touched by rabietic saliva. 

 Failing an iron heated to a light red heat, or the sprinkling of 



