166 
HERMANN M. BIGGS. 
this fact this author supposed that the bite of an irritated dog or 
one in rut might become momentarily virulent and cause rabies. ” 
However, this supposition is utterly untenable, and certainly 
nothing can be more erroneous or terrifying than the idea that 
the bite of a healthy dog may, under certain conditions, be follow¬ 
ed by rabies. A wound or injury produced by the teeth of a non- 
rabid dog—one whose saliva does not contain the living organism, 
whatever may be its nature, which is the cause of rabies—can no 
more bring about the production of the specific disease which 
we call rabies than can the wound made by a sterilized 
knife. 
This, with all other supposed causes, must be absolutely reject¬ 
ed. It must be admitted that there is only one evident and 
efficient cause for the disease—a contagium vivum—as to the 
nature or character of which we have at present no absolute 
knowlege, excepting that it must be a living matter capable of 
reproduction and multiplication when transferred to the living 
organism, and of there producing a specific disease manifested by 
varying symptoms in the different species of animals affected, and 
its presence or virulence can only be determined by the results 
produced when introduced into the blood of previously healthy 
animals. That it is exceedingly minute is proved by the difficulty 
expei ienced in its demonstration, and that it is a micro-organism 
belonging to the scliizomycetes is rendered probable by the 
similaiity of the disease to other communicable diseases known 
to be due to pathogenic micro-organisms of this class. Indeed 
Hr. Herman Fol, of Geneva, in a recent communication to the 
Fiench Academy, professes to have discovered the specific micro¬ 
organism of this disease—to have been able to demonstrate it in 
the neuroglia of the central nervous system—to have suc¬ 
ceeded in cultivating it in appropriate cultivation media, and to 
have produced rabies in rabbits by inoculation with pure cultiva¬ 
tions of this germ. In this communication he describes the mate- 
lial points in the results obtained in his experiments and the 
methods employed as follows. He says : “Like our predecessors, 
we have tiied in vain to obtain a staining of some special organ¬ 
ism in the cords from rabid animals by the ordinary methods, but 
