388 PATHOGENIC BACTERIA. 



It will be observed that this treatment is really no 

 more than the immunization of the individual during the 

 incubation stadium, and the generation of a vital force — 

 shall we call it an antitoxin ? — in the blood of the animal 

 in advance of the time when the organism is expected to 

 saturate the body with its toxic products. 



This, in brief, is the theory and practice of Pasteur's 

 system of treating hydrophobia. It is exactly in keeping 

 with the ideas of the present, and is most extraordinary 

 in its reasonings and details when we remember that the 

 first application of the method to human medicine was 

 made October 26, 1885, nearly ten years before the time 

 we began to understand the production and use of anti- 

 toxins. 



Frantzius ' has studied the bile of animals immunized 

 to rabies, and found that it possessed a marked neutral- 

 izing effect upon the rabies poison, so that when 0.2 

 gram of bile and 0.2 gram of comminuted rabid rabbit's 

 medulla are simultaneously introduced beneath the dura 

 of a healthy rabbit, no disease occurs. The bile of 

 healthy oxen, sheep, hogs, etc., was also studied, but 

 found to be without effect. He concludes that the bile 

 is the most powerful rabies antitoxin (?) yet discovered. 



The action of the bile in this combination is probably 

 identical with that discovered by Koch, who found that 

 the bile of cattle suffering from the "Rinderpest" ex- 

 erted an immunizing power by which healthy animals 

 could be protected from the disease. 



Hogyes of Budapest 2 believes that Pasteur was mis- 

 taken in supposing that the drying Was of importance, 

 and thinks the dilution is of chief importance. He, 

 therefore, makes an emulsion of rabbits' medulla (1 gram 

 of medulla to 10 c.cm. of sterile broth). Of this stock 

 solution, prepared freshly every day, the first dilution 

 used is 1 : 10,000 ; then on succeeding days 1 : 8000, 



1 Cmtralbl. f. Bakt. u. Parasitenk., May 13, 1898, xxii., No. 18. 



2 Acad, des Sciences de Buda-Pest, Oct. 17, 1897; Centralbl. f. Bakl. u. 

 Parasitenk., 1887, ii., 579. 



