i^ecifio Contagious Diseases. Ill 



that of their residence. During the. existence of rabies in 

 a country all dogs found at large unmuzzled should be de- 

 stroyed. Suspected dogs should be shut up under super- 

 vision for three months unless rabies is developed earlier. 

 Dogs that have bitten human beings should be similarly 

 shut up for a week to test the existence of the disease or 

 otherwise. 



Pasteur's method of rendering the system insusceptible 

 is by preserving the spinal cord of a rabid animal in a 

 sterilized bottle, with free access of air, but protected against 

 all germs by a filter of sterilized cotton-wool, until inocula- 

 tion with its substance is no longer fatal. Beginning with 

 this, say twelve days old, he inoculates his patient and the 

 following day he operates again using virus which has been 

 kept one day less, and so on dailj', using the progressively 

 stronger virus until he has inoculated with that of the full 

 strength. A number of recent failures have led him to 

 adopt his intensive method, by which this series of inocula- 

 tions is practically repeated several times. That the process 

 is generally protective must be acknowledged, as otherwise 

 all his subjects must have died of the last and strongest 

 virulent injection, whereas less than one per cent, have ac- 

 tually perished. On the other hand, to laud such protection 

 as constant and absolute is to contradict all that we know 

 of acquired vital resistance to specific disease-poisons, and 

 is to contradict the results of Pasteur's own inoculations. 

 Add to this that a constant succession of cases must be kept 

 up to obtain the requisite amount of virus of the different 

 required potencies, and that after the inoculations the sub- 

 jects carry away in their bodies the most virulent virus 

 that Pasteur has been able to produce, to the danger of any 

 other susceptible animals with which they may come in 

 contact, and the method must be held to be pregnant with 

 danger. It is a notorious fact that since Pasteur began in- 

 oculating rabies has become extraordinarily prevalent in 



