SOCIETY MEETINGS. 
601 
have shown that two microbes growing in the body may suc¬ 
cessfully oppose each other. Thus if erysipelas cocci be injected 
under the skin and into the blood and if a large dose of anthrax 
bacilli be introduced 24 hours afterwards, so that a large number 
of the cocci are present at the time of infection, the anthrax 
bacilli will all die out in 17 to 24 hours without causing even 
local oedema.” The bacillus pyocyaneus is also antagonistic 
to the bacillus anthracis. An animal may be inoculated with a 
virulent anthrax culture and if this be soon followed by an in¬ 
oculation from a culture of bacillus pyocyaneus the life of the 
anthrax bacillus is quickly destroyed. 
So far as I have been able to learn, the cause of rabies has 
not been positively identified. Some bacteriologists, in their 
efforts to get ahead of their fellows, have declaied positively 
that their research has been rewarded and that they have suc¬ 
ceeded in locating the long desired germ. But the amusing 
part of it is that no two of them agree on a description. One 
insists that it is a long rod like bacillus, another that it is short 
and blunt, but still a bacillus, while others have described it as 
a diplococcus. It has been variously proven to be motile and 
non motile, aerobic and anaerobic, existing in the blood and not 
so existing. But as rabies is probably due to a germ, I will 
mention it here. The virulence—whatever it may be—is trans¬ 
mitted by the saliva, tears, milk, nervous tissues, etc., of the 
rabid patient, but never by the blood. 
As I said earlier, rabies, more than any other of the diseases 
of the domesticated animals, fills the popular mind with dread 
and terror. What will be more anxiously or rapidly passed 
from mouth to mouth throughout a community than the reports 
incident to a “mad dog scare”? This is one disease that it is 
unnecessary for any civilized land to harbor. A strict control 
of all dogs in the country for a season would readily extermi¬ 
nate rabies. This subject is being agitated somewhat in some of 
the eastern sections of the United States. Federal control of 
all dogs for a short time, and the relentless destruction of all 
vagrant dogs is suggested as a feasible way of ridding the 
greater part of the country of rabies for all time. Of course 
there would remain danger from wolves, foxes, etc., in certain 
sections, but outbreaks from these sources need not spread far. 
I am wandering from my theme. This is not bacteriology. 
The tetanus bacillus is another to claim our notice. It grows 
normally in rich garden soil and may be said to invade the 
animal system only by accident. For a long time all attempts 
