xin INSTITUT PASTEUR 317 



were most affecting and interesting. I need scarcely 

 add that this is not a description of an occasional 

 scene, but that the same has occurred day after day, 

 and still takes place, the number of patients remaining 

 almost as large, which indicates that the number of 

 persons bitten continues to be very considerable. 1 



As an instance of the value of this treatment, I may 

 mention that on my return to London a friend of 

 mine, a well-known Manchester merchant, called upon 

 me to ask my advice. Two days before, he had been 

 walking in the crowded streets of Salford, when sud- 

 denly he felt his thumb wrenched. He looked down 

 and saw it had been bitten by a strange dog, and was 

 bleeding. The dog rushed away with its tail between 

 its legs among the carts and carnages in the road. 

 Being somewhat disturbed by this, my friend went 

 to an apothecary, who cauterised the wound, and then 

 consulted his doctor, who treated it in a similar way, 

 but advised him to see me as to whether or not he 

 should submit himself to Pasteur's treatment. He put 

 the question to me: "Do you think the dog was mad? 

 If so, what would you do yourself under similar 

 circumstances ? " I replied : " Of course I cannot 

 speak positively as to whether the dog was suffering 

 from rabies, because that could only be told by the 

 examination of the dog's medulla after death ; but 

 under the circumstances you describe I should certainly, 

 if I were you, at once go to Paris, and place myself 

 under Pasteur. Still," I added, " I am not a medical 

 man. I will give you a letter to Sir James Paget, upon 

 whose advice you may safely act." I also handed him 

 a letter to Pasteur. On being consulted, Paget at once 



1 I find that the number of persons treated in 1904 was 755, of whom 3 

 died, the rate of mortality being 0*33 per cent., whilst as an average for 

 the last 10 years the death-rate lias ranged from 0*18 per cent, in 1902 to 

 0*39 per cent, in 1897 and 1904. 



