284 PROTECTIVE INOCULATIONS. 



677 sheep and 200,962 cattle. Tlie average annual loss before 

 these protective inoculations were practised is said to have been 

 about ten per cent for sheep and five per cent for cattle. The total 

 mortality from this disease among inoculated animals, including that 

 resulting from the inoculations, was 0.94 per cent for sheep and 0.34 

 per cent for cattle. Chamberland estimates that the total saving as a 

 result of the inoculations practised has been 5,000,000 francs for 

 sheep and 2,000,000 francs for cattle. 



Podmolinoff gives the following summary of results obtained in 

 1892 and 1893 in the " government of Cherson " (Austria) : Number 

 of sheep inoculated, 67,176; loss, 294 = 0.43 per cent. Number of 

 horses inoculated, 1,452; loss, 8. Number of cattle inoculated, 

 3,652; loss, 2. The conclusion is reached that Pasteur's method of 

 inoculation affords an immunity against infection with virulent an- 

 thrax bacilli in greater amounts than could ever occur under natu- 

 ral conditions. 



BUBONIC PLAGUE. 



A number of prominent bacteriologists have been engaged in re- 

 searches relating to the prevention and cure of bubonic plague by 

 means of an antitoxic serum, obtained by the same method and in 

 accordance with the same fundamental scientific principle as in the 

 case of the antitoxic serum which is now so successfully employed in 

 the treatment of diphtheria. The experiments thus far made have 

 apparently been attended with a considerable degree of success. Pro- 

 fessor Calmette reports that the serum of Yersin prepared at the Pas- 

 teur Institute in Paris proved to be curative in a considerable propor- 

 tion of the cases treated during the recent outbreak at Oporto, and that 

 protective inoculation conferred a temporary immunity, which, how- 

 ever, did not last longer than twenty days. The mortality in cases 

 not treated by Yersin 's serum was 70 per cent, in those treated with 

 it 13 per cent. 



The inoculations made by Haffkine in Bombay appear to have been 

 quite successful. In his first experiment 8,142 persons were inocu- 

 lated. Of these 18 subsequently contracted the disease and 2 died. 

 Among 4,926 persons inoculated a single time at Dharwan, 45 were 

 subsequently attacked and 15 died; while among 3,387 persons in 

 whom a second inoculation was made, only 2 were attacked. Haff- 

 kine uses in his inoculations a sterilized culture of the plague bacil- 

 lus. The inoculation is followed by slight fever and enlargement of 

 the nearest lymphatic glands. All symptoms disappear at the end 

 of two or three da vs. 



