RABIES 83 



Therapeutique, vol. xii., p. 116. Paris, Bailliere 

 Fils, 1912.) Later statistics, compiled by Rem- 

 linger, give a percentage which is even lower. 



The patients are divided into three classes. In 

 class A, the animals which bit them are proved to 

 have been rabid, by the development of rabies in 

 other animals either bitten by them or inoculated 

 with their medulla. In class B, the animals are 

 judged to have been rabid, by examination of 

 their bodies after death. In class C, the animals 

 are only suspected to have been rabid. But, even 

 in class A, the mortality is less than 1 per cent. 



The most careful estimate of the mortality 

 among persons who have been bitten by dogs 

 judged to be rabid, but have not been treated 

 by Pasteur's method, is 16 per cent. 



It is not impossible, in theory, that a patient, 

 after returning home, should die, and his death not 

 be reported to the Institute where he was treated : 

 but such an event, if it has ever happened, must 

 be very rare. Certainly, it would not alter the 

 fact, that the world's record has been kept down, 

 from 1886 to 1914, at less than 1 per cent. 



Pasteur's original method is still observed at the 

 Paris Institute. The formula varies, of course, 

 according to the number, situation, and gravity 

 of the bites : but the method is one and the 

 same. We may take, for instance, the formula for 



