622 HYDROPHOBIA 



incised and parts removed for the making of smears and sections 

 (p. 614). 



In addition to miscroscopic examination, a small piece of the 

 medulla or cord of the suspected animal must be taken, with all 

 aseptic precautions, rubbed up in a little sterile '75 per cent, 

 sodium chloride solution, and injected by means of a syringe 

 beneath the dura mater of a rabbit, the latter having been 

 trephined over the cerebrum by means of the small trephine 

 which is made for the purpose. In rabies in the rabbit, 

 symptoms of paresis usually occur in from six to twenty-three 

 days and death in fifteen to twenty-five days. When the material 

 for inoculation has to be sent any distance, this is best effected 

 by packing the head of the animal in ice. The virulence of 

 organs is not lost, however, if they are simply placed in glycerin 

 in well-stoppered bottles. 



(2) Treatment. Every wound inflicted by a rabid animal 

 ought to be cauterised with the actual cautery as soon as 

 possible. By such treatment the incubation period will at any 

 rate be lengthened, and therefore there will be better opportunity 

 for the Pasteur inoculation method being efficacious. The 

 person ought then to be sent to the nearest Pasteur Institute for 

 treatment. It is of great importance that in such a case the 

 nervous system of the animal should also be sent, in order that 

 the diagnosis may be certainly verified. 



ADDENDUM TO APPENDICES A AND B. 



The scientific investigation of smallpox and rabies has shown, 

 on the one hand, that it is impossible to associate the conditions 

 with organisms belonging to any well-recognised group. On the 

 other hand, much controversy has in each case been aroused 

 regarding the interpretation to be put on peculiar changes seen 

 in certain tissue cells. The situation is further complicated by 

 the fact that in both diseases the causal agent can pass through 

 a coarse earthenware filter and must therefore be extremely 

 minute. Similar changes in cells and similar facts regarding 

 the minuteness of the causal agents have raised like difficulties 

 in other diseases, such as trachoma and molluscum contagiosum 

 in man, foot-and-mouth disease in cattle, and in the diphtheria 

 and epithelioma contagiosum of birds; by many, measles and 

 scarlet fever are included in this group. In all the cellular 

 changes described in these conditions, a common feature is the 

 presence in the protoplasm of small chromatic granules often in 

 groups. In recent years these have acquired new importance 



