26 Pasteur's Life and Researches. 



at the nature of that investigation, for it had attracted a 

 great deal of public attention, and it might have been brought 

 specially to their notice by a recent occurrence in this town. 

 He meant hydrophobia — that fearful malady to which dogs 

 especially, and occasionally cats and wolves, are prone. All 

 know that a rabid dog or cat is as dangerous, if not more so, 

 as the most venomous snake ; that its bite means in all 

 probability death, and death aggravated by the most fright- 

 ful sufferings. Here is a picture of a case : — On December 

 ioth, 1880, a child, five years old, who had been bitten in 

 the face a month previously, was dying in the Trosseau 

 Hospital. Devoured at the time by a raging thirst, and seized 

 with a horror for all liquids, he approached with his lips the 

 spout of a closed coffee-pot, then suddenly started back, the 

 throat contracted — a prey to such fury that he insulted the 

 nursing sister who was attending on him. He was at the same 

 attacked by aerophobia to a prodigious degree. At a certain 

 moment the heel of one of his feet protruded from the bed. An 

 assistant blew upon it. The child had not seen the assistant, 

 and the breath of air was so light as to be almost imperceptible. 

 The poor child flew into a rage, aud a violent spasm seized him 

 in the throat. The next day delirium began — a fearful delirium ; 

 the frothy matters which filled his throat suffocated him. M 

 Radot told them that Pasteur was specially attracted to this 

 disease by the great reserve, if not opposition, shown to his ideas 

 by many medical men. He wished to prove conclusively that 

 hydrophobia was as much due to organisms as spleen fever, and 

 no doubt he was equally animated with a benign desire to 

 discover some method for preventing or, at all events, checking 

 its ravages. 



In 1880, Pasteur commenced his investigations on hydro- 

 phobia, and in June of the present year a Royal Commission 

 appointed by the English Local Government Board to inquire 

 into M. Pasteur's researches issued its report. He would not 

 attempt to follow the course of the investigation, which was 

 enshrouded in unusual difficulties. For instance, a difficulty 

 arose at the outset in proving that a micro-organism was really 



