150 
HOUSEHOLD BACTERIOLOGY 
At each laborotary where the treatment for the pre¬ 
vention of rabies is carried on, this material of vary¬ 
ing degrees of potency is kept constantly ready, so 
that as soon as possible after a bite from a supposed 
rabic animal the treatment may be started. The oper¬ 
ation is a simple subcutaneous injection, resulting 
usually only in a slight or temporary local soreness. 
The whole affair is completed within two weeks, when 
all apprehension may be dismissed. No untoward ef¬ 
fects follow the treatment. 
The mortality from hydrophobia before the day of 
preventive inoculation was about 16 per cent. Through 
this treatment it has been reduced to about two-teqths 
The methods of securing artificial immunity to in¬ 
fectious diseases, which we have so hastily surveyed, 
widely different as the details may be, all seem to 
depend upon the same wonderful power of the body 
cells to adapt themselves to harmful conditions by the 
use to new ends of the old physiological capacities. 
The task of the investigator centers largely in dis¬ 
covering the ways in which the body cells may be 
educated to their new responsibilities with safety and 
despatch. 
We seem to be just at the dawn of discovery in this 
newly opened field, and the outlook is of the highest 
promise for the relief of suffering and the prolongation 
of life. 
The various preventive means already devised are 
in the hands of experts and require the greatest care 
