234 
Analyses of Books. 
[April, 
subjeCt, exhaust his susceptibility for smallpox, — which question 
has now unfortunately descended (not ascended, as anti-vaccina- 
tionists put it) into the region of politics, and is being discussed 
in the customary style of agitators. But Pasteur went to wor ' 
in a totally different manner. He took the infectious matter ot 
splenic fever, and succeeded in attenuating it,— that is, in so re- 
ducing its malignity that when introduced into a sheep or an ox 
it did not not prove mortal, but merely occasioned a slight illness. 
After its recovery the animal thus “ vaccinated if the very 
inapproprite term must be used — was proof against the contagion 
of splenic fever, even if purposely inoculated with the virus in its 
original unmitigated form. _ . . , 
In the same manner he has dealt with the virus, of rabies ne 
has attenuated it down to such a point that when introduced into 
the system of dogs it occasioned merely a slight illness, on ie- 
covering from which the subjects thus operated upon were found 
experimentally to be proof against rabies. If this immunity is 
found enduring, Pasteur will have freed the world from one o 
the most fearful maladies to which mankind aie had e. 0 
reader of these lines is safe, in the streets, in his garden, or even 
in his own house, against being bitten by some rabid cur, an 
doomed to a certain and horrible death,— all the more honib e 
because of the deceitful respite of months which the victim often 
enjoys. Surely, we repeat, the man who delivers us from this 
scourge deserves our utmost gratitude. . 
As an instance of the dangers which Pasteur encountered in 
his researches on rabies we may quote the following case :— - 
“ Not long ago a veterinary surgeon telegraphed to him ‘Attac 
at its height in poodle and bulldog. Come.’ . . . rhe two dogs 
were rabid to the last degree. The bulldog especially, an enoi-^ 
mous creature, howled and foamed in its cage. . . . 1 wo youths 
threw a cord with a slip-loop over the dog as a lasso is thrown. 
The animal was caught and drawn to the edge of the cage. 
There they managed to get hold of him and to secure his jaws ; 
and the dog choking with fury, his eyes bloodshot, and his body 
convulsed with a violent spasm, was extended upon a table, and 
held while Pasteur, leaning over his foaming head, at the distance 
of a finger's length, sucked up into a narrow tube some drops of 
the saliva. . . . Witnessing this formidable tete-a-tete, I thought 
Pasteur grander than I had ever thought him before. 
Yet this man, so ready to expose himself to the most fearful 
danger in the cause of Science and humanity, is so averse to 
giving needless pain that he utterly eschews “ sport,”— the 
destruction of animals for pastime. Such are the “ investigating 
sneaks,” as they are absurdly called by Bestiarians. 
