764 INTERNAL SECRETIONS AND PRESERVATION OF LIFE. 



tion means the introduction not of the bacteria, but of their 

 products: the toxins themselves. These do not reproduce any 

 more than the alkaloids of plants reproduce; they react with 

 more or less vigor upon the adrenal system, precisely as do 

 these alkaloids or other drugs. Indeed, if, instead of "toxins," 

 they were called, as are alkaloids, "medicines," their use would 

 inspire no more fear of complications than do the former, and 

 their true, position in therapeutics would be accorded them. 



Hydrophobia. The distinction may perhaps be more 

 clearly shown by briefly submitting our interpretation of the 

 manner in which this dread disease is developed in the organ- 

 ism, and the difference between this process and that following 

 vaccination against rabies, as practiced at the Pasteur Institute 

 of Paris. 



Have we in the wound, as in the case of tetanus, a focus 

 from which toxins are gradually developed? Bacteriologists 

 have not as yet determined the nature of the exciting agent of 

 rabies, but the development of the disease recalls that of tet- 

 anus. As is the case with the toxins of the tetanus bacillus, the 

 potential of the toxic body of rabies is such that the stage of 

 adrenal stimulation passes practically unperceived, and the ad- 

 renal system gradually lapses into insufficiency. The amount 

 of trypsin, oxidizing substance, and fibrinogen in the blood 

 and cells is reduced in proportion, though life's processes con- 

 tinue, and waste-products are continuously being elaborated. 

 The day finally comes, however, when the accumulation of phys- 

 iological poisons is such that the usual symptoms, including con- 

 vulsive paroxysms, i.e., the rabies, appear. But why does the 

 blood of a rabid animal never contain the virus? 



We are incidentally afforded another proof of the correct- 

 ness of our views in two of the leading newer conceptions we 

 have submitted: i.e., the principle that toxic elements are de- 

 stroyed in the peripheral capillaries by contraction of the mus- 

 cular vessels from which they receive their supply; and the 

 identity of the minute elements of the central nervous system 

 as blood-channels. That the cerebro-spinal system is the seat 

 of accumulation of the virus of hydrophobia, and that Pasteur, 

 whose genius will serve as beacon for all generations, employed 

 the desiccated medulla of rabbits in his vaccination against 



