324 RABIES 



gives good results also but as it requires some special technical 

 knowledge to be efficiently carried out the former is recom- 

 mended for its simplicity and ease of execution. This method 

 has stood the test in Europe and America for nearly two years 

 and although a large number of animals having different 

 diseases have been examined with the object of determining 

 whether or not these changes may occur in other conditions, 

 they have never been found. 



At the laboratory of the State I^ive Stock Sanitary Board, 

 which was the first in this country to take up this method, 

 fifty-two cases have been examined since May, 1900, without 

 a single failure. These cases have occurred in mankind, dogs, 

 cov/s, cats and rabbits, and the characteristic changes have 

 been found in each of these species. We have not had an 

 opportunity of examining horses, sheep or swine. In this 

 laboratory it has replaced the slow^er and less certain method 

 of inoculation almost entirely. Inoculations are now practiced 

 only in those cases in which the material is sent in such condi- 

 tion that the microscopic examination is impossible." 



§ 243. Prevention and treatment. The prevention of 

 rabies infection resolves itself into two procedures. (1) The 

 destruction of all ownerless and vagrant dogs and (2) the 

 muzzling of all dogs that appear upon the streets or in public 

 places. In thus preventing the propagation of the virus 

 as shown by the results obtained in Germany and Great 

 Britain the disease will be practically exterminated. 



There is no treatment for rabies except the preventive 

 inoculation known as the Pasteur treatment by which an im- 

 munity is produced by the subcutaneous injection of the virus 

 of rabies in an attenuated form , beginning with the mildest virus 

 and going gradually up to one which possesses nearly or full 

 virulence. The attenuation of the virus is brought about by 

 drying at a fixed temperature and the action of the atmosphere. 

 Depending upon the length of time the virus is exposed to the 

 influences, we can obtain any degree of virulence desired, the 

 loss of virulence under fixed conditions being quite uniform. 



The disease as seen in dogs infected naturally was called 

 by Pasteur "street rabies" and the virus of such animals is. 



