ANTIRABIC INOCULATIONS. 
193 
divicluals, beings endowed proportionately with the constitu¬ 
ting principle of the living being such as we know it. As such 
they enjoy the faculty of memory, and each time that they 
are attacked by a malady they remember—automatically, if 
you like—but still they remember how they have gotten rid 
of the intruder (I mean the microbe) which attacked them, 
and when next assailed they know immediately what measures 
are necessary to prevent the enemy from retaining a hold on 
them. 
I do not desire to dwell any farther on this theory. It is 
sufficient for my purpose to have indicated it. I will only re¬ 
mark that the recent work of Metchnikoff on the part played 
by the white globules in the case of inflammation produced 
by bacteria, certainly go to strengthen that theory. I will 
now try to show by means of the three cases that I am about 
to analyze, that rabies, which is a malady affecting the nervous 
centers, is no exception to this rule. 
In order that the nervous centers be protected against a 
mortal attack of rabies, it is necessary, in order to fore¬ 
stall the progress of the microbe, that other microbes of the 
same species, but attenuated, should be placed in contact with 
the cells of the spinal cord and of the brain. Let me make 
the passing remark, that the first subcutaneous injections are 
made with matter, the prolonged desiccation of which has 
caused its virulence to disappear, but it is not unreasonable 
to admit that the nervous cell must be influenced, in a measure, 
by the ptomaines secreted by the hydrophobic microbe and 
that this reasonably gives it a certain degree of power to re¬ 
sist (through being accustomed to its secretion) the attack of 
microbes, at first weak, then more and more virulent when 
introduced by the successive injections. When, after having 
followed (as shown by experience) the nervous fibres, which 
from the bitten spot go to the cord and to the brain, the infec¬ 
tious germ reaches the nervous cells of the cerebro-spinal axis, it 
finds them prepared, hardened to its attacks and it can do 
them no injury. Such is immunity. 
What goes to demonstrate that during antirabic inocula¬ 
tions things take place as I have just described, is that my 
