RABIES 395 
leather, wood, etc. Axe reports finding such foreign susbstances 
present in 90 per cent. of 200 cases he examined. Galtier reports such 
findings in from 50 to 70 per cent. In experimental animals and 
cattle the writer has rarely found them. The obvious lesions are not 
constant and it is probable that the pronounced changes occasionally 
found in a single organ are accidental or secondary rather than 
primarily related to the disease. The lesions in the brain and spinal 
cord are likewise variable. In some cases there is a marked hyperemia, 
while in others the brain appears to be normal. 
Pathological miliary centers have been noted not only in the axial 
portions of the nervous system, but in the gray matter as well. These 
centers were formed by lymph cells which accumulate notably around 
the blood vessels (perivascular) and the nerve cells (pericellular) 
as well. The lesions, when present, are observed most frequently in 
the motor centers of the oblongata and spinal cord. 
In 1887 Babes described the following changes: 
“In animals dead from street rabies there are found usually a hypermia and an 
acute generalized cedema of the cerebral meninges, acute hemorrhages localized around 
certain vessels, as well as inflammatory lesions. On microscope examinations we find 
an increase of the plasma cells, augmentation of the reticular substance, fibrinous in 
character, between the several layers of the meninges. 
“The epithelium of the cerebro-spinal central canal has proliferated. In the gray 
matter which surrounds the canal, and especially in that of the floor, hemorrhages, 
sometimes symmetrical, are often found. Microscopically, we often find an oblitera- 
tion or thrombosis of a vessel by a reticulated, hyaline, pigmented material or by leu- 
cocytes or hyaline globules, and sometimes a hyaline degeneration or even inflammation 
of the vascular tunic. The extravasated blood also contains much of the hyaline 
material. The hemorrhages are often limited by the lymphatic sheath of the vessels. 
At the same time the epithelium of the ventricles and central canal may be partially 
lost. This last is occasionally filled with blood or plugs, either granular or hyaline in 
character. 
“With the naked eye small centers of degeneration may sometimes be noted in the 
gray matter, but often they may be sought for in vain. 
“The most constant lesions are microscopic in character; they are found more especial- 
ly in the gray matter surrounding the cerebro-spinal canal and in the motor centers of 
the medulla and spinal cord. These lesions consist at first in hyperemia and accumu- 
lations of embryonic cells around the small vessels, perithelial or migratory in origin, 
often showing indirect division; finally there are also found lesions of nerve cells. 
“The lesion of the nervous elements of the parts indicated is quite characteristic; 
it consists of signs of proliferation, namely, in the presence of several small cells in place 
of one large one, or in a uniform degeneration and often in the appearance of vacuoles 
with a reduction in size or disappearance of the nucleus, or again, its chromatic network 
disappears. These cells frequently contain pigment. Round uninuclear, more rarely 
multinuclear, elements of lymphatic origin often invade the protoplasm even of the 
