226 
HERMANN M« BIGGS. 
to rabies without a single failure, but also has succeeded in pr< 
venting the development of the disease in a large number of dog 
after they had been bitten, both of which he asserts positive]! 
he has succeeded in doing, then the question as to prevention o 
the disease in the human being is only as to the method of appl 
cation. For certainly dogs are far more susceptible and liable t 
the malady than human beings, the character of the disease i 
evidently the same in both man and dogs, and, if dogs can b 
brought into a^refractory state to the disease, it is not assuming 
too much to conclude that the same is true in the human being 
The preliminary report of the commission appointed by tin 
Minister of Public Instruction in 1881 to examine and reporl 
upon the results obtained up to that time is also of interest here. 
As incorporated in Tyndall’s introduction to the life of Pasteur, 
it may be summed up as follows : 
“ Of six dogs* unprotected by vaccination, three succumbed tc 
the bites of a dog in a furious state of rabies. 
“ Of eight unvaccinated dogs, six succumbed to the intra-venom 
inoculation of rabic matter. 
“ Of live unvaccinated dogs, all succumbed to inoculation upor 
the surface of the brain after trepanning. 
“ Finally, of three-and-tweuty vaccinated dogs, not one was 
attacked with the disease subsequent to inoculation with the most 
potent virus.” 
Surely these results upon dogs are of a nature to at least 
attract the careful consideration and attention of scientific men 
throughout the world. 
But, throwing aside the evidence which we have now at hand 
as to the efficacy of Pasteur’s method—and I think we must 
admit that it is not altogether satisfactory in character—let us 
consider the probability of the correctness of these last observa¬ 
tions from the light thrown upon the subject by his former work. 
Does it seem probable that the man who, in the earliest infancy 
of bacteriology, disclosed the nature and cause of fermentation, 
and established our knowledge of it on a firm foundation in the 
face of much opposition and skepticism—the man who disproved 
the theory of spontaneous generation, and laid the foundation 
