Smyrna times., 1885-12-23
M. Pasteur and Hydrophobia,


The laboratory of M. Pasteur at
Paris has become the objective point of
pilgrimages from all parts of the globe,
his reported discovery, or rather con-
trivance, of a prevention and remedy
for hydrophobia having given him a
unique position among the worlds
great physicians. The exact limits of
his power over the terrible disease pro-
duced in the human subject by the bite
of certain rabid animals are not yet
perhaps ascertained, but it is hardly
open to dispute that his three years of
study of hydrophobia have been pro-
ductive of very promising results. 1t
is perhaps safe to go beyond this and
to concede that M. Pasteur's inocula-
tions with portions of nervous matter
taken from animals suffering from
rabies have been followed by re-
suits that bear comparison with vac
cine virus. Hydrophia is caused by a
specific poison, which, it is thought,
may develop spontaneously in the dog
and some other animals, but not in
man. The bite of the mad dog is the
usual origin of the disease in man,
though the cat, wolf and fox may also
| transmit it, The fluids of the mouth
are commonly supposed to be the chief
source of the poison, but according to
M. Pasteur, it is concentrated chiefly
in the nervous system. The flesh is
not, it appears, affected. A veterinar-
ian recently stated to Mortified Par
/ isian audience that he had a hundred
times eaten the uncooked flesh Of rabid
COWS and horses without bad results.
Not all ours of eccentric demeanOr are
to be thought mad. The animal atfec-
ted with hydrophobia is shy and irri
table, refuses food, eats bits of straw,
paper, &C., suffering apparently from
hallucinatiOn. He may or may not
avoid water. 1t is only by cOnfining
and watching a suspected animal that
the owner can be sure whether it suf-
fers from hydrophobia or from some
other of the many ills to which our
pets are subject. The symptoms of
hydrOphobia usually exhibit them
selvs in from thirty to forty days after
the bite intervals of six months or a
year are rare and doubtful. Prompt
cauterizatiOn of the wound may at
times prevent the development of the
disease, but once developed it is almost
sure to prove fatal. By exposing pOr-
tiOns of the brain or spinal cord of a
rabid animal to dried air, the minute
creatures to whose activity the disease
is supposed to be due lose their vigoT
to some extent, and with this weak
ened virus NJ. Pasteur makes his first
incubation, increasing the strength of
the virus with each successive inocula-
tiOn. The last inoculations are made
| vrrifh Vyis vrrh ~
artifcially increased by cultivation .
This cultivation consists in inOculating
a rabbit with a particle of the spinal
cord of mad dog, and when, after tif-
teen days, this rabbit dies of hydrOphO.
bia, sixty other rabbits are in success
sion inOculated, one from another
until, as the virus becomes stronger
the siXtieth rabbit dies on the seventh
day. A man inoculated with the
J weakest virus would not be protected
but after having been gradually pre-
, pared by inoculation with cultivation;
: of increasing degrees of potency unit
) the sixtieth has been reached, he a
/ length, it is held, arrives at a state il
| which he is proof against the virus o
, the ordinary mad dog. Such at leas
, is the theory. The experience of tn,
t four children recently sent over t.
Paris from Newark will go far to show
whether it is well founded. 1t is pos
4 sible, of course, that rabies may de
= velop in one or more of the children be
9 fore they reach Paris, in which case NJ
7 Pasteur would not expect a successful
: result from his treatment; but it ma,
: be hoped both that the disease will no
D mature so rapidly and that the savant'
t remedy has all the potency he as
e cribes to it.-BdLtimOre Sun.