RABIES 89 



puerperal fever, came this power, not dreamed of 

 before him, the power to standardise this or that 

 disease : to have its germs growing in a test-tube, 

 and to have them of a definite strength : to 

 graduate them, in a regular series, from non- 

 virulence to full virulence : to stock a disease in all 

 shades of strength : and to use these bottled 

 poisons, in their proper order, to immunise men or 

 animals against the natural disease. Thus, at last, 

 when he had re-created pathology, and had accom- 

 plished more for doctors than whole ages of their 

 work could accomplish, he was led to his last 

 appointed discovery, the preventive treatment 

 against rabies. 



" That was in 1885 : and, about 1890, he began to 

 grow old. He had worked so hard, and had made 

 his way, with infinite patience, against so much 

 opposition, some of it intelligent enough, some of 

 it foolish past all telling. Henceforth, he must 

 begin to let his work pass into the hands of younger 

 men. Let it pass ? Why, it had passed, already, 

 into the hands of all men. It was become part of 

 the doctor's daily practice, part of the routine of 

 every hospital, part of the method of the medical 

 sciences, part of all nursing, part of all housekeep- 

 ing, part of all farming, part of all brewing. There 

 is no country on earth which is not the richer and 

 the happier because of him. 



" Then came enfeeblement, and a year of quiet 

 resignation ; and, in September, 1895, his death. 

 It is recorded of him that he died holding the 

 crucifix in one hand, and in the other his wife's 

 hand. Here was a life, within the limits of 

 humanity, wellnigh perfect. He worked inces- 

 santly : he went through poverty, bereavement, 



