236 
NEWS AND SUNDRIES. 
is very evident that the repeal of the State law bearing on the 
subject was premature and ill-advised. The helpless condition 
of those likely to suffer from the diseases shows strongly the 
necessity of appropriate repressive legislation at the earliest op¬ 
portunity .—Rural New Yorker . 
Hydrophobia.— For some time M. Pasteur, the French inves¬ 
tigator, has been experimenting with a view of discovering 
whether the fatal infection of rabies can be disarmed of its power 
by inoculation. It is said that he now possesses four dogs which 
are proof against the infection, whatever may be the method of 
inoculation used or the virulence of the matter, while other dogs 
inoculated with the same virus invariably perish. The experi¬ 
menter raises the question whether these four animals owe their 
impunity to spontaneous recovery from a mild attack which may 
have escaped observation, or whether they are naturally refractory 
to the disease. One of three dogs which he inoculated in 1881 
survived, and though twice inoculated in 1882, he did not become 
rabid. The importance of finding a remedy for all forms of 
hydrophobia is magnified by two facts brought to light by the 
researches of M. Bert. One of these is that even if the saliva of 
a mad dog does not communicate rabies it may prove fatal by 
producing serious local injuries—in other words, the secretions of 
rabid animals have poisonous properties over and above the 
special rabic virus. The second fact is that it does not follow 
because a dog which has bitten any person does not die that the 
animal is free from rabies. These conclusions will add to the 
terrors of the disease. But there is some consolation in learning 
from M. Bert that the mere’saliva of rabid dogs do not always 
communicate the deadly virus, and apparently never communi¬ 
cate it unless they contain the mucus from the respiratory organs, 
which seems to be the fatal portion of the saliva .—Proceedings of 
Medical Society of County of Kings . 
Research in Sanitary Science. —Subject to the conditions 
of their scheme, the Grocers’ Company now announce as the 
matter of competition for their first Quadrennial Discovery Prize 
of £1,000 for original research in sanitary science the following 
