134 PASTEUR AND HYDROPHOBIA HI 



undoubtedly accompanied by the destruction of many 

 innocent dogs, and by the infliction of acute pain and 

 mental anguish upon human beings, who, could they 

 know the truth, have no cause for alarm, has also 

 at the same time necessarily prevented the acquisition 

 of accurate knowledge with regard to the disease 

 in important respects, especially as to the conditions 

 of its communication from dog to man. Accordingly, 

 we find great uncertainty as to the conclusions which 

 are to be drawn from statistics in regard to the effect 

 on human beings of the bites of dogs suffering from 

 rabies. According to the lowest estimate where care 

 has been taken to exclude cases in w^hich there is 

 insufiicient reason for supposing the offending dog 

 to have suffered from rabies, of every six persons 

 bitten, one dies — that is to say, one develops hydro- 

 phobia ; for recovery after the development of the 

 hitherto recognised symptoms of hydrophobia is un- 

 known. This is a mortality of 16*66 per cent ; other 

 estimates range from 15 to 25 per cent. The large 

 proportion of escapes as compared with deaths is 

 attributed to the wounds inflicted not having been 

 sufficiently deep to introduce the poison into the 

 system, also to timely surgical treatment having 

 the same effect, and to the fact that the dosf, in 

 spite of probabilities to the contrary, may in a certain 

 proportion of cases have been wrongly suspected 

 of suffering from " rabies.^' 



At the same time there is no doubt that animals 

 (and hence presumably man) are sometimes endowed 

 with an immunity from rabies. This has been proved 



