225 
THE ETIOLOGY OF BABIES. 
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)f Pasteur’s observations upon rabies and the efficacy of his 
method for the prevention of the disease in animals and man 
ifter bites by rabid dogs ? Let us review rapidly the experiments 
dint have already been made, and discuss briefly the assertions 
that are based upon them. Pasteur’s first communication upon 
rabies was in 1880—more than live years ago. At that time he 
thought he had discovered a new micro-organism in the saliva of 
i child who had died of hydrophobia, and described a new dis_ 
Base as being produced in rabbits by inoculation with this germ. 
These observations were a little later shown to be incorrect, and 
were acknowledged to be so by Pasteur. Since that time he has 
been studying this disease constantly, and from time to time has 
reported more or less fully the results of his observations to the 
French Academy. His investigations have led out in many di¬ 
rections, and the conclusions reached in these experiments, as 
reported in his last communication to the Academy, have been 
the result of a gradual development extending over nearly six 
years of tireless investigation. 
As regards the first person inoculated, of whom we have 
heard so much, it has seemed to me that the evidence is far from 
satisfactory upon which rests the conclusion as to the rabid char¬ 
acter of the malady affecting the dog which bit the now famous 
Joseph Miester. The indications point rather in quite another 
direction. It is certainly very unlike the ordinary behavior of 
rabid animals to fall upon a person with such ferocity and per¬ 
sistency as must have been the case in this instance, when the 
unfortunate victim was bitten in no fewer than fourteen different 
places. Apparently the only evidence upon which rests the sup¬ 
position that the dog was mad is the result of the autopsy, and 
that certainly does not constitute sufficiently satisfactory proof. 
But, however this may be, certainly far too much importance, in 
my opinion, has been attached to this case, and it seems to me 
that the strongest evidence of the efficacy of Pasteur’s method 
for the prevention of rabies rests, not upon any results thus far 
obtained in the inoculation of human beings, but upon the results 
of his experiments upon dogs. If in a single series of experi¬ 
ments he has not only been able to render fifty dogs refractory 
