88 IMMUNITY 



Berlin the weakest injection used (the first) is made from a cord 

 that has dried but eight days, and the course is much quicker. 

 It was at first thought that short drying might carry over too 

 much virus but in order to treat certain serious head bites, cords 

 of 3 and 4 days drying were tried not only without damage but 

 with promising results. Now in threatening cases treatment 

 may be begun with 3 day cords, then 2 day cords. The effect 

 of this mode of inoculation is to produce in the bitten individual 

 a very rapid active immunity, quicker in its action than the 

 infection. The treatment is solely prophylactic and in no way 

 curative. If symptoms of rabies have set in, the treatment 

 is of no avail. In rabies the incubation period is about six weeks, 

 so that there is plenty of time to immunize the patient by injec- 

 tion with attenuated virus. 



Since the immunizing process is always begun after the bite of a 

 rabid, or supposedly rabid dog, it differs from other vaccinations, 

 which are resorted to before infection. 



Results of Treatment. Among those bitten by rabid animals 

 the total mortality before the introduction of vaccination was not 

 less than 10 percent. Among the same class of patients in the 

 Pasteur institutes, the death rate of all cases, early and late, has 

 been reduced to a fraction of i percent. Those cases in which 

 the bites are on the head, are always more serious, and the mortal- 

 ity is higher. Like tetanus the virus travels, it is supposed, from 

 the site of injury to the central nervous system by way of the 

 nerves. If the bite was on the toe, it would take longer for 

 infection to reach the brain, than if it was on the upper lip. This 

 is a very plausible explanation of the varying incubation periods 

 in both tetanus and hydrophobia. 



Coley's Fluid in the Treatment of Tumors 



This method of treatment is in no wise a prophylactic one, but 

 strictly a curative one. It consists in the injection of the toxins 

 of streptococci, in the hope that they will cause a shrinking, or dis- 



