The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-07-14
TERRoRS OF RABIES.
Hydrophobia Cure Claimed to Be Ger
 tain If Treatment is Prompt.

From the St. Paul Pioneer Press
 There are still found here and there doctors who deny the existence or hydrophobia as a disease and declare that it's victims die of fright merely.
 As a matter of fact hydropnobia IS just as real as diphtheria or tuberculo- sis, and it's existence is just as easily demonstrated. It is caused by some small organism and it progresses along invariable lines. When once its symp- toms are fully developed it is absolute ly and utterly fatal.
 In all the literature of medicine there is no trustworthy record or cure. But. fortunately, it develops slowly. and if treatment Is begun With in reasonable time there is no req son why the symptoms should de- velop at all.
 Hydrophobia is malady of both man and beast. Dogs, wolves, cats, cattle, rabbits, monkeys and nearly all mammals suffer from its ravages. AS a rule. it appears in the human sub feet as the result of bite from some domestic animal-usually dog.
 Pasteur, after long experiments, found that the infected spinal cord of an animal killed by hydrophobia had the power of producing the disease in healthy animals, but that this power gradually disappeared For example, if an emulsion be made of the spinal cord of a rabbit which had just died of rabies and that emulsion be in- iected into a healthy rabbit, the lat ter will invariably develop the malady and die.
 If however. the spinal cord of the first rabbit be kept for day or week before the emulsion is made, there will appear more and more chances in favor of the second rab- bits recovery. In other words, it is possible so to attenuate and weaken yirulent organisms, even those of hy- drophobia, that they become less and less harmful and finally entirely harm less.
 This attenuation may be accom- plished by various means. but in prac- tice it has been found most satisfac- tory to depend upon the benefcent operation of time. The spinal cords of rabbits dead of the disease arc cut into small pieces and suspended in sterile glass jars over caustic pot ash-which absorbs moisture-and kept in a uniform temperature of 22 degrees centigrade.
 A cord removed at the end of forty eight hours is just shade less infect i've than it was when taken from the carcass. A cord removed at the end of fifteen days has lost its power of infection entirely.
 This process of immunization con sists in fortifying the human patient during the period of incubation with innoculation of virus of generally in creasng activity. On the first day of the treatment the patient is innoculat- ed with an emulsion from fifteen-day cord. This. being practically inert, does not injure him.
 Next day he gets an injection of a thirteen-day cord Then, as man vaccinated develops an exceedingly mild case of cowpoX, just so this hy drophobia patient develops an exceed ingly mild and harmless variety of rabies. It is so mild, indeed. that he doesn't notice it. He may go about his business and mingle with his fel- lows as if nothing were wrong with him.
 On the third day there follows an injection of eleventh-day cord, which contains the hydrophobia organisms in pretty healthy condition. But the thirteen-day cord has produced cer- tain immunity already and the patient does not grow i'll. On successive days injections are made of emulsions of more and more active cords.
 Finally the patient receives an in- iCI, If he had received it on the first day 1t would have killed him out of hand, b;t by this time his body has ac- uuired a gradually increasing power of resistance to the hydrophobia organ ism. In brief, he has been vaccinated against rabies.