Rabies and Hydrophobia. 305 



and of dog to dog. Yet many of the older observers agree with 

 Peuch and Galtier in pronouncing the blood non- virulent. Pasteur, 

 Roux, Bujwid, and Helman failed to obtain virulent cultures 

 from blood. Peuch and Nocard have found the milk virulent, 

 and Bardach found the same to be the case in a woman for two 

 days before her death of rabies. In some partially refractorj'' 

 animals like the sheep, the blood seems to destroy the virus, as 

 intravenous inoculations have been made with impunity. The 

 probability is that the blood is habitually non-virulent in the early 

 stages and in mild cases, but becomes virulent in violent and 

 advanced cases. Pasteur first showed that the virus has a special 

 election for the brain and nervous matter and that the central 

 nervous organs are constantly infecting. Rossi inoculated with a 

 piece of nerve trunk, and Doubouc and Babes advanced the 

 hypothesis that the virus advances along the nerve to reach the 

 brain. 



It was formerly supposed that the saliva of omnivora and her- 

 bivora was nonvirulent but repeated experiment has proved it to be 

 infecting. The blunder was due to the fact that these animals did 

 not often transmit the disease by biting. Some writers even deny 

 that rabies exists at all as an infectious disease. One alleges that 

 the danger of rabies is ' ' less than the gallows. ' ' Experiment 

 shows most conclusively that it is much more certain when the 

 conditions are fulfilled. One may live a long lifetime without 

 seeing a genuine case of rabies, but so he may without seeing leprosy 

 or plague, and he is no more entitled to doubt their existence than 

 he is the existence of Manila, or of the other side of the moon. 



Morbific Agent. The actual factor which produces rabies is not 

 certainly known so that we cannot speak of its bacteriology. 

 That it is due to a specific particulate germ is now indisputable. 

 Paul Bert and Nocard filtered the virulent fluid through plaster 

 and found the clear fluid that has passed through nonvirulent. 

 Rivolta, Babes, Bouchard and Peuch severally passed a solution 

 of the rabific brain matter through a Chamberland filter and found 

 the clear filtrate harmless. The virulent agent is therefore not a 

 body in solution but a solid (organism) which is held back by the 

 filter. Hallier, Klebs, Galtier, Gibier, Pasteur, Fol, Babes and 

 Dowdeswell have respectively attempted the cultivation and in- 

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