188 ACTIVE IMMUNIZATION 



2 c.c.; eighth day (third-day cord), 1J c.c. Injections are not given 

 of cords earlier than the third day. Now begin again with fifth-day 

 cord and come down to third-day cord inclusive; these all now being 

 2 c.c. doses. 



"If it be thought desirable to approach at first the more virulent 

 cords gradually, when the fifth-day cord is reached a fifth-day cord 

 may be given again as the next day's injection; so also with the fourth- 

 day cord, but after this reduplication the course of the injections 

 is resumed and maintained in daily succession, fifth-day cord, 

 fourth-day cord, third-day cord, and over again until the twenty- 

 first day has passed, the dose being 2 c.c. each time." (Keirle.) 



Regarding the modus operandi of the antirabic vaccination out 

 knowledge is as yet imperfect, but it appears that as a result of 

 the immunizing process rabicidal substances are formed which are 

 capable of destroying the rabic virus. Babes accordingly combines 

 the active immunization with the passive process, i. e., the intro- 

 duction of the serum of immunized animals, and apparently with 

 satisfactory results. As rabicidal serum has no marked antitoxic 

 properties, and as the symptoms of rabies are evidently toxic in 

 origin, it is clear that no special benefits can be expected from its 

 use when once the disease has developed. 



Results. So far as the results of the antirabic treatment are 

 concerned an analysis of 31,330 cases, in which the existence of 

 rabies in the biting animal had either been definitely established 

 or rendered highly probable, shows an average mortality of but 

 0.75 per cent., which, no doubt, could be still further reduced if the 

 treatment of the bitten persons could always be instituted in time. 



After the disease has once developed, vaccine treatment is, of 

 course, without avail; at present we can only hope that the future 

 may yet teach us some method by which the disease when already 

 in actual progress may yet be conquered and those unfortunates 

 be saved from their terrible sufferings. 



