Contagious and Epizootic Diseases. 63 



with any confidence for the extinction of an animal plague ; 

 the highest good that can be expected from it is the protec- 

 tion of the system of the particular animal inoculated, against 

 an ordinary attack of the disease. The living germs are, 

 however, propagated in the system of the animal operated 

 on, and unless the animal and all its products are carefully 

 secluded for a time sufficient to allow of the escape of the 

 germs from the system, and unless such escaped germs are 

 suitably disinfected, each protected animal may start a new 

 focus of infection and plague. In connection with this it 

 is not a little suggestive that, since the general adoption 

 of the Pasteurian method for hydrophobia in France, the 

 disease has become unusually prevalent in that and neigh- 

 boring countries, and though nearly all the subjects inocu- 

 lated by M. Pasteur have escaped the disease, the num- 

 ber of people dying from hydrophobia in a given time has 

 in no way decreased, even in France (Colin). 



The truth is that the Pasteurian inoculation should be 

 surrounded by greater safeguards than even its authoi' has 

 yet appreciated the need of. While the great majority of 

 those bitten by rabid animals may, by its adoption, be pro- 

 tected against rabies, they cannot safely be set at large im- 

 mediately after, as practised by Pasteur, but should be quar- 

 antined until time shall have assured us of the destruction of 

 the potent virus introduced into their system, and should, with 

 all their belongings, be disinfected before final liberation. 

 In the case of herds, too, the same precaution is imperative, 

 and on no account should animals kept on uninfected lands 

 be inoculated with these less potent germs as a preventive 

 against the more potent germs to which they are to be sub- 

 sequently exposed in an infected pasturage. Such a course 

 would only be the sowing of a previously wholesome soil 

 with a deadly seed which would be preserved and intensi- 

 fied in any portion of that soil favorable to its maintenance 

 and increase. The extensive adoption of Pasteur's method 



