EXTRACTS. 
227 
cases the probability of infection may be affected by speedy cau¬ 
terizing or excision of the wounded parts, or by various washings, 
or other methods of treatment; (4) the unequal danger of bites of 
different species of animals, and even of different dogs. In some 
groups of cases the percentage of deaths among persons bitten by 
dogs believed to have been rabid has been estimated at only 5 per 
cent., in others at 60 per cent., and the mortality from the bites 
of rabid wolves has been variously estimated at from 35 to 90 
per cent. 
“ By the courtesy of M. Pasteur the committee were enabled 
to personally investigate ninety cases treated by him, these being 
mostly those which had been earliest treated, in which the periods 
since inoculation were longest, and living within reach in Paris, 
Lyons, and St. Etienne. Among the ninety cases there were 
twenty-four in which the patients were bitten on naked parts by 
undoubtedly rabid dogs, and the wounds were not cauterized or 
treated in any way likely to have prevented the action of the 
virus; there were thirty-one in which there was no clear evidence 
that the dog was rabid; others in which the bite had been in¬ 
flicted through clothes. It is estimated, from the experience of 
the results of bites in other cases, that, had they not been inocu¬ 
lated, not less than eight among these ninety persons would have 
died. Not one of them has shown since the inoculation any signs 
of hydrophobia. 
“ Since, in order to quiet fears, M. Pasteur has been obliged 
to inoculate many in whom there was no satisfactory evidence 
that the bite was that of a rabid animal, it might be unjust to 
estimate the total value of his treatment in the whole of his cases 
as being more than the rate of mortality observed in them com¬ 
pared with the lowest rate observed in any large number of cases 
not inoculated. This lowest rate may be taken at 5 per cent; 
and, as between October, 1885, and the end of December, 1886, 
M. Pasteur inoculated 2,682 persons (including 127 from this 
country), the mortality should have been 130. But at the end of 
1886 the number of deaths was 31, including 7 bitten by wolves, 
in whom the symptoms of hydrophobia appeared while they were 
under treatment; in fact, the actual percentage mortality was be- 
