RABIES 125 



was in use, some fifteen to twenty out of every 

 hundred persons bitten by mad dogs died a most 

 painful and horrible death. During the fourteen years, 

 from 1885 to 1899, over 23,000 persons known to have 

 been bitten by rabid dogs have been inoculated at the 

 Pasteur Institute; and their average mortality has been 

 0*4 per cent. In 1899, the latest year for which statistics 

 are available, 1,614 cases were treated, with a mortality 

 of 0*25 per cent. Of these, 1,506 were French and 108 

 were foreigners. Of the 108 foreigners, 12 came from 

 Great Britain and 62 from British India. It is little 

 short of a national disgrace that we should still be 

 dependent on French aid to succour those amongst us 

 who are so unfortunate as to be bitten by a mad dog ; 

 but the nation which gave the use of anaesthetics to 

 the world, and which first showed the value of anti- 

 septics, is largely dependent to-day on foreign aid in 

 dealing with great outbreaks of all sorts of diseases 

 within its borders. The German Koch and the 

 Russian Haffkine are called in to cope with the 

 cholera in India ; we fall back upon the Swiss Yersin 

 and the Japanese Kitasato to elucidate the true nature 

 of plague, and to devise methods for combating its 

 ravages. When rinderpest broke out in South Africa it 

 was again to Koch that we turned. The unsatisfactory 

 position of Great Britain in these matters is to some 

 extent due to a small but active section of society 

 whose affection for their lapdogs has overpowered 

 their sense of duty to their neighbours. It is, how- 

 ever, we fear, still more due to the unintelligent treat- 

 ment of men of science by the Government of the 

 country, and to the want of appreciation of the value 

 of science shown by society at large. If, to balance 

 the list given a few lines above, we recall the work of 

 our countryman Major Ross on the malarial parasite, 

 it serves only to remind us of the difficulties placed 

 in the way of his research by the officials of the 



