196 LOUIS PASTEUR, 



sheep and all the cows, vaccinated and unvaccinated, 

 were inoculated with a very virulent virus; and three 

 days subsequently more than two hundred persons as- 

 sembled to witness the result. The " shout of admira- 

 tion," mentioned by M. Radot, was a natural outburst 

 under the circumstances. Of twenty-five sheep which 

 had not been protected by vaccination, twenty-one were 

 already dead, and the remaining four were dying. The 

 twenty-five vaccinated sheep, on the contrary, were " in 

 full health and gaiety." In the unvaccinated cows 

 intense fever was produced, while the prostration was 

 so great that they were unable to eat. Tumours were 

 also formed at the points of inoculation. In the vac- 

 cinated cows no tumours were formed; they exhibited 

 no fever, nor even an elevation of temperature, while 

 their power of feeding was unimpaired. ISTo wonder 

 that " breeders of cattle overwhelmed Pasteur with ap- 

 plications for vaccine."' At the end of 1881 close upon 

 34,000 animals had been vaccinated, while the number 

 rose in 1883 to nearly 500,000. 



M. Pasteur is now [1884] exactly sixty-two years of 

 age; but his energy is unabated. At the end of this 

 volume we are informed that he has already taken up 

 and examined with success, as far as his experiments 

 have reached, the terrible and mysterious disease of 

 rabies or hydrophobia. Those who hold all communica- 

 ble diseases to be of parasitic origin, include, of course, 

 rabies among the number of those produced and propa- 

 gated by a living contagium. From his first contact 

 with the disease Pasteur showed his accustomed pene- 

 tration. If we see a man mad, we at once refer his 

 madness to the state of his brain. It is somewhat 

 singular that in the face of this fact the virus of a mad 

 dog should be referred to the animal's saliva. The 



