292 LOUIS PASTEUR. 



tion of hydrophobia ? Such was in fa^t the conclusion 

 of Dr. Maurice Raynaud, who, having been informed, 

 at the same time as Pasteur, of the illness of the child, 

 had made, on his own account, some experiments on 

 rabbits. His rabbits were dead. Already a year 

 previously M. Maurice Eaynaud had announced the 

 transmission, by the saliva, of rabies from man to 

 rabbits. ' We are, then, in the presence of a new fact 

 of this kind,' he said, ' and we really believe, until a 

 proof to the contrary is given us, that these latter 

 rabbits died of hydrophobia.' 



With his habitual prudence, and trusting more to 

 the results of experiment than to medical observation 

 alone, Pasteur was not in a hurry to form such 

 positive conclusions. He began by doing what Dr. 

 Maurice Raynaud had neglected to do. He examined 

 with the microscope the tissues and the blood of the 

 rabbits inoculated in the laboratory ; he discovered, 

 both in those that were dead, and in those which were 

 on the point of death, the presence of a special 

 microbe, easily cultivable in a pure state and of 

 which the successive cultures caused the death of 

 other rabbits. Invariably, the same microbe appeared 

 in the blood. As one or two days sufficed to cause 

 death, hydrophobia could not have had tinu 1 to make 

 its appearance. Pasteur, moreover, found this same 

 microbe in the saliva of children who had dial of 

 common maladies, and even in the normal saliva of 



