THE VACCINE OF SPLENIC FEVER. 241 



On May 31 very virulent inoculation was effected. 

 Yeterinary doctors, inquisitive people, and agricul- 

 turists formed a crowd round this little flock. The 

 thirty-one vaccinated subjects awaiting the terrible 

 trial stood side by side with the twenty-five sheep 

 and the four cows, which awaited also their first turn 

 of virulent inoculation. Upon the proposal of a 

 veterinary doctor, who disguised his scepticism under 

 the expressed desire to render the trials more com- 

 parative, they inoculated alternately a vaccinated and 

 a non- vaccinated animal. A meeting was then ar- 

 ranged by Pasteur and all other persons present for 

 Thursday, June 2, thus allowing an interval of forty- 

 eight hours after the virulent inoculation. 



More than two hundred persons met that day at 

 Melun. The Prefect of Seine-et-Marne, M. Patinot, 

 senators, general counsellors, journalists, a great 

 number of doctors, of veterinary surgeons, and 

 farmers ; those who believed, and those who doubted, 

 came, impatient for the result. On their arrival at 

 the farm of Pouilly-le-Fort, they could not repress 

 a shout of admiration. Out of the twenty-five sheep 

 which had not been vaccinated, twenty-one were dead ; 

 the goat was also dead ; two other sheep were dying, 

 and the last, already smitten, was certain to die that 

 very evening. The non-vaccinated cows had all volu- 

 minous swellings at the point of inoculation, behind 

 the shoulder. The fever was intense, and they had 



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