74 



Mr. G. F. Dowdeswell. 



or at all modified, this would presumably be infective in a considerable 

 proportion of cases unless the patients were protected by the pre- 

 ceding inoculations. 



I cannot, however, as above stated, avoid the conclusion that the 

 rapid method of inoculation is dangerous. This opinion is confirmed 

 by the experiments of Professor Frisch, of Vienna, the only inde- 

 pendent investigation of these methods yet recorded.* 



The statistics of his treatment must very shortly show whether 

 the mortality amongst his patients has or has not increased since the 

 practice of his intensive methods. 



Within the last few days, too, since the above was written, this 

 opinion of the danger of infection from the intensive or rapid 

 method of treatment is strengthened, by a report published in the 

 current number of the ' Annales ' of the Pasteur Institute, by Dr. 



* His first report ( £ Wiener Med. Wochenschr.,' 1886, April 24th, No. 17) in the 

 main confirmed the results of M. Pasteur ; twelve dogs protected by the original 

 method resisted intravenous injection of acute virus, while three out of six control 

 animals were infected. 



In a second report (ib., 7th August, 1886, No. 32), of sixteen rabbits inoculated 

 by trephining, with fifteen of which preventive inoculations were commenced imme- 

 diately afterwards, and continued daily for eighteen days, all save two died infected. 



M. Pasteur having attributed this unfavourable result to the inoculations having 

 followed one another too slowly, and recommended his rapid or intensive method 

 (' Comptes Kendus,' 2nd November, 1886), Professor Frisch repeated his experi- 

 ments on a larger scale, following the new method of inoculation, with almost 

 uniform failure, and consequently concludes decidedly that this is dangerous. 



Nor can I overlook a case in man, all the stages of which, both before and after 

 his treatment by the rapid method of M. Pasteur, were within my own observation. 

 It is that of Joseph Smith, or Groffi, of this Institution, already noticed in different 

 journals. He was bitten sharply on the hand by the furiously rabid cat above 

 mentioned ; within a few minutes the wounds were well washed under the tap, 

 sucked by himself, and then, together with his mouth, washed with a strong solu- 

 tion of permanganate of potash, again with water, and then thoroughly treated 

 with anhydrous carbolic acid — absolute phenol. Shortly afterwards the parts bitten 

 were excised under chloroform. The same night lie was taken to Paris, and the 

 following day his treatment by M. Pasteur's intensive method commenced. 



Shortly after the completion of the course and his return home, he developed 

 symptoms of spinal paralysis and died under circumstances which suggested the 

 probability of his having been infected by rabbit virus. A report of the case will, I 

 believe, shortly be published by those who had charge of it. 



The wounds caused by the bite were thoroughly cauterised so shortly afterwards, 

 that there was certainly every prospect of his escaping infection from that source. 

 The symptoms developed and other circumstances seem to point clearly to the cir- 

 cumstance of his having been infected by subsequent inoculation, and not by the 

 original bite. The incubation period in the rabbits which were, I believe, inoculated 

 from his medulla, will settle this conclusively. It must, however, be remarked 

 that he was debilitated during the treatment in Paris by the effects of intemper- 

 ance, and consequently, no doubt, rendered more susceptible to infection by the 

 inoculations to which he was subjected there. 



