RABIES. 1,11 



an incubation period of several weeks, and Pasteur cone. -ivd that it 

 would be possible to anticipate the symptoms, which would naturally 

 follow in a dog which had been bitten or inoculated. I 

 them a mild form of hydrophobia by the injection of att 

 virus of short incubation period. These experiments shou.-d th.it 

 it was possible to do this, and the outcome was the introduction ,,f 

 a system of protective inoculation in the human subject. Pasteur 

 succeeded in giving immunity from hydrophobia to about fifty dogs 

 of every age and breed. 



In 1885 Joseph Meister, a boy nine years of age, bitten badly 

 by a mad dog upon the hands, legs, and thighs, was brought to 

 Pasteur. At a post-mortem examination of the dog, its stomach 

 was found full of bits of hay, straw, and wood, and it had b 

 unquestionably rabid. On July 6th, sixty hours after Meister hail 

 been bitten, a syringe full of marrow from a rabbit which had died 

 on June 21st, and therefore fifteen days old, was injected beneath 

 the skin over the right hypochondriac region. The next morning 

 Meister was inoculated with a spinal cord fourteen days old, and M 

 on every day, till on the sixteenth a cord only one day old was used. 

 So many injections, however, need not have been given. a> it was 

 subsequently found that the spinal marrows injected during th- 

 first five days were inert when tested on rabbits. The marmu 

 the next five days showed an ascending scale of virulency, until, on 

 the last two days of the treatment, Meister had been inoculated 

 with a virus so virulent that it was capable of causing hydrophobia 

 in dogs after ten days' incubation. Meister remained conij>l-t-l\ 

 free from hydrophobia. From that time to the pivx-nt day many 

 thousands of patients have been treated in Pai -i> by >Iii:htly modified 

 methods, and it is very generally believed that a real prophyl. 

 agent has been discovered. 



Pasteur suggested that the rabic virus might consist of two 

 distinct substances a living virus capable of developing in tl,.- 

 nervous system, and a secondary product which, in sutlici.-nt 

 portions, might have the property of hindering the development 

 of the living virus. The nature of tl,i> living viru> i> quite 

 unknown. 



According to a return of the inoculations at the Past 

 stitute, the total number of persons treated in 1895 wi 

 whom five died. In three cases the symptoms of hydro,,!,, 

 occurred within a fortnight of the last inoculation. If these 1 

 cases are omitted, the number of per ***** '* ***** 

 and the deaths to two. The results are shown in the following t 



