116 MICROBES AND HEALTH. 



phobia set in, but subsequently he introduced many 

 corrections and limitations, for which no scientific rea- 

 son could be assigned. 



"For instance, he did not profess to protect unless 

 the patient came to him within a fortnight of being 

 bitten. He did not reckon deaths which occurred dur- 

 ing the treatment, or within a fortnight after the treat- 

 ment. He kept no record of the patients after the 

 treatment was ended, and took no account of deaths 

 occurring subsequently. He admitted that his inocu- 

 lations produced only temporary effect, and that re- 

 inoculation was necessary after a time, and he did not 

 hesitate to claim as successful cases, any number of 

 people who were in no danger of contracting the dis- 

 ease, as well as cases which infringed any or all of 

 these conditions, so long as they did not prove fatal. 

 All these limitations were purely arbitrary, and were 

 introduced one after the other, to account for and 

 explain away deaths which continued to occur in spite 

 of the Pasteurian treatment, though had that treat- 

 ment been what M. Pasteur professed at first, these 

 patients ought to have recovered. 



"The Pasteurian statistics, indeed, appear to have 

 been compiled on the principle of Tleads, I win; tails, 

 you lose;' for all the patients who did not die were 

 claimed as cures, while as many as possible of the fatal 

 cases were eliminated on the ground that they were 

 treated too late. Here is a striking illustration of this 

 peculiar method: On the 14th of January, 1887, Lord 

 Doneraile was bitten by a tame fox; he underwent the 

 Pasteurian antirabic treatment eleven days later, and 



