PASTEUR. 785 



With, reference to his first inoculations in man, Pasteur says: 



"Making use of this method, I had already made fifty dogs of various 

 race's and ages immune to rabies, and had not met with a single failure, 

 when, on the 6th of July, quite unexpectedly, three persons, residents 

 of Alsace, presented themselves at my laboratory." 



These persons were Theodore Vone, who had been bitten on the arm 

 on July 4, Joseph Meister, aged 9, bitten on the same day by the same 

 rabid dog, and the mother of Meister, who had not been bitten. The 

 child had been thrown down by the dog and bitten upon the hand, the 

 legs, and the thighs, in all in fourteen different places. Pasteur com- 

 menced the treatment at once, and had the satisfaction of reporting to 

 the Academy of Sciences in March of the following year (1886) that the 

 boy remained in perfect health. Since this time Pasteur institutes for 

 the treatment of hydrophobia have been established in all parts of the 

 civilized world, and the statistical reports published justify the belief 

 that when the treatment is instituted at an early date after the bite, 

 and is properly carried out, its protective value is almost, absolute. At 

 the Pasteur Institute in Paris, 9,433 persons were treated during the 

 years 1886 to 1890, inclusive. The total mortality from hydrophobia 

 among those treated was considerably less than 1 per cent (0.61). In 

 1890, 416 persons were treated who had been bitten by animals proved 

 to be rabid, and among these there was not a single death. In 1891 

 the number of inoculations was 1,539, with a mortality of 0.25 per cent; 

 in 1892, 1,790, with a mortality of 0.22 per cent; in 1893, 1,648, with a 

 mortality of 0.36 per cent; in 1894, 1,387, with a mortality of 0.50 per 

 cent. 



There has been and is still a considerable amount of skepticism among 

 members of the medical profession and others as to the practical 

 value of Pasteur's inoculations for the prevention of hydrophobia; 

 and some physicians have even contended that the disease known by 

 this name is not the result of infection from the bite of a rabid animal, 

 but is a nervous affection due to fear. The time at my disposal will 

 not permit me to present for your consideration the experimental and 

 clinical evidence upon which I base the assertion that nothing in the 

 domain of science is more thoroughly demonstrated than the fact that 

 there is a specific infectious disease known to us as rabies, or hydro- 

 phobia, which may be communicated to man, or from one animal to 

 another, by the bite of a rabid animal, and that Pasteur's inoculations 

 prevent the development of the disease in animals which have been 

 infected by the bite of a rabid animal or by inoculations with infectious 

 material from the central nervous system. This being the case, it is 

 evident that there is a scientific basis for Pasteur's method of pro- 

 phylaxis as applied to man, and his published statistics give ample 

 evidence of the success of the method as carried out at the Pasteur 

 Institute in Paris and elsewhere. Great as have been the practical 

 results which have already followed Pasteur's brilliant discoveries, 

 S M 95 50 



