SUCCESS OF INOCULATION 123 



infected with the disease. In less than a month the 

 uninoculated were dead of 'charbon,' the inoculated 

 were perfectly healthy. The telegram announcing 

 the result to Pasteur, anxiously waiting in his 

 laboratory at Paris, ended with the words ' Succes 

 epatant !' 



So striking a demonstration naturally had a pro- 

 found effect. It inspired confidence in the treatment. 

 Since the date of this experiment some millions of 

 sheep have been inoculated against anthrax, and 

 several hundred thousand oxen; and it has been 

 calculated that, within the succeeding twelve years, 

 seven million francs were saved by this means alone 

 to French agriculture. Perhaps the convincing nature 

 of Pasteur's work in this connexion is best shown 

 by the fact that the insurance companies of France 

 insist on inoculation before they will insure sheep and 

 cattle. 



We have left ourselves but little space to dwell on 

 the work which occupied the greater part of the last 

 twelve years of Pasteur's life. Already, in the midst 

 of his work on anthrax, he was thinking of rabies; and 

 in 1 88 1 he proved that it was conveyed through the 

 saliva of the mad dog, and that it could be communi- 

 cated to rabbits. Saliva, however, was not in every 

 case to be depended on. In some cases it failed to 

 convey the disease. Experiment showed that the 

 poison was concentrated in the brain. To this day 

 no one has succeeded in finding the organism if it 

 be an organism which causes rabies. Hence it can- 

 not be cultivated on gelatine in test-tubes, and no 

 modified culture of bacteria can be produced, as is 

 now done in the case of diphtheria and other diseases. 

 Other means had to be devised. After countless ex- 

 periments it became evident that, if the spinal cord of 

 a hydrophobic rabbit be kept dry at a temperature of 

 25 C. for a couple of weeks, the strength of the virus 



