140 PHARMACEUTICAL BACTERIOLOGY. 



tubes and marketed as glycerinated tube virus. The vaccine should be kept, 

 in a cool, dark, dry place. It deteriorates gradually and the time limit of 

 usefulness is stamped on each package. 



The old time ivory tips are still on the market and are preferred by many 

 physicians. A dry bulk form of the virus is also marketed. The manner 

 of the use and the action of the virus are universally known. As now pre- 

 pared the remedy is absolutely safe. No ill effects ever follow its use. Of 

 the millions of persons inoculated within recent years, there probably has 

 not been a single instance of bad effects which could be traced primarily 

 to the vaccine virus itself. A small-pox vaccination is not nearly as likely 

 to produce ill effects as the customary hand shake. In fact the latter opera- 

 tion does occasionally spread an infection. 



12. Hydrophobia or Rabies Vaccine. 



Pasteur's hydrophobia virus is obtained from the spinal cord of rabbits, 

 inoculated vnth the virus from a dog suffering with rabies. The inocula- 

 tion is made into the dura mater of the spinal cord. The rabbit dies in 

 about two weeks. A second rabbit is inoculated from the first, which dies 

 even sooner, showing that the toxin gained in virulency in its passage through 

 the first animal. This is repeated until finally the animal dies in six or seven 

 days after inoculation. Beyond this the virulency of the poison cannot be 

 increased and this constitutes the virus fixe (fixed or unchanged virus), of 

 Pasteur. 



The spinal cord of the rabbit dead of virus fixe is dried in a glass cylinder 

 with potassium hydrate. The cylinder is placed in a cool dry place and 

 each day small bits of the cord are cut off and placed in a vial of glycerin. 

 At the end of fourteen days the virus is no longer capable of producing 

 hydrophobia in rabbits, but the animal inoculated with it can withstand 

 the thirteen days virus (which was preserved in the glycerin) and so on 

 down the scale, until finally the rabbit can withstand the virus fixe without 

 experiencing serious effects. 



In man it is customary to begin the treatment for rabies (or suspected 

 rabies) with the nine day cord (hypodermic injections of the cord emulsions) 

 and to give each succeeding day a virus one day stronger, until finally the 

 virus fixe is injected without producing untoward symptoms. The individual 

 thus treated is now able to withstand the much weaker virus from a dog 

 or other animal suffering from rabies. As the result of this mode of treat- 

 ment the mortality rate from rabies is now less than i per cent. (Ravenel). 

 Those bitten by dogs (or wolves, skunks, cats) suffering from rabies or 

 suspected of suffering from rabies, should cleanse, cauterize and disinfect 

 the wound at once, and then immediately proceed to a Pasteur Institute and 



