146 PASTEUR AND HYDROPHOBIA III 



MM. Beclard, Paul Bert, Bouley (the celebrated 

 veterinarian), Tisserand, Villemin, and Vulpian. Their 

 report contained the following statement : 



The results observed by the Commission may be thus sum- 

 marised. Nineteen control dogs (i.e. ordinary dogs not treated 

 by Pasteur) were experimented on. Among six of these bitten 

 by mad dogs, three were seized with rabies. There were six 

 cases of rabies among eight of them subjected to venous inocula- 

 tions, and five cases of rabies among five which were inoculated 

 by trephining on the brain. The twenty-three dogs treated (by 

 Pasteur) and then tested all escaped rabies. 1 



Subsequently to the experiments witnessed by the 

 Commission M. Pasteur carried out experiments in 

 which, instead of using virus of increasing strength 

 taken from living rabbits, he made use of the fact 

 discovered by him that the spinal cord of a rabid 

 animal when preserved in dry air retains its virulent 

 property for several days, whilst the intensity of the 

 virulence gradually diminishes. Pasteur used for this 

 purpose cords of rabbits affected with rabies of great 

 virulence, determined by a long series of transmissions, 

 and having only an eight days' incubation period. 

 He injected a dog on the first day with a cord which, 

 when fresh, was highly virulent, but had been kept 

 for ten days, and hence was incapable of starting rabies 

 in the dog ; on the second day he used a cord kept 

 for nine days, on the third day a cord kept for eight 



1 I have ascertained that of these twenty-three dogs some had been 

 already treated by Pasteur before the appointment of the Commission, 

 and a minority were treated by him for the first time in the presence 

 of the Commission. Ten of these dogs are still in M. Pasteur's hands, 

 and have been inoculated three times on the surface of the brain with 

 rabid virus ; not one has developed rabies. July 1887. 



