The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1908-07-03
THE VICTORY OF SCIENCE
OVER HORRORS OF RABIES
Many European Countries Have Stamped Out
the Disease---M uzzling Dogs Would Soon
Make the Disease Extinct,


scientist of more recent Investigations.
Yet the latest report from the Depart
ment of Agriculture says conclusively:
There is abundant evidence to war
state is free from the disease" Specific
instances of the spread of rabies are
cited, as, in 1906 a severe outbreak in
Waterbury, Connecticut, where ITS
dogs were destroyed and several per-
sons hurried to the Pasteur hospital
for treatment; in 1866 an outbreak in
Jacksonville, Florida, when 1900 dogs
were destroyed, and OF twelve persons
bitten, three died of hydrophobia; in
Indiana the state veterinarian reports
more trouble from rabies than from
any other infectious disease; Norfolk,
Virginia, has had the disease among it's
dogs, and cattle, and among a few
people, for five years; and Charleston,
West Virginia, recently reported an
outbreak
The District of Columbia, knowing
that the eyes of all the nation are
turned that way in search of a good
example, has during the present year
Waged persistent warfare on the pariah
dogs. the great unwashed" of the dog
world. The law requires the licensing
of dogs, and the upper tendon of dog
dom goes about with tags on its col
lars and often with leashes safely held
in the hands of careful owners, but
from Virginia and Maryland waits and
strays, members of the tramp kingdom,
smell from afar the incense from thou
sands of kitchens and stray into WASH
ington, to become the legal prey of the
vigilant dog catcher. The dog catcher
has been overWorked so far, and since
January 80 over $3.50 of these tramp
dogs have been put to death. OF these
eighty-six were found 10 have rabies,
the bodies of suspects having been sent
to the bureau of animal industry for
laboratory examination. Because the
epidemic has increased and human life
been greatly endangered, the authori
ties are ordering the muzzling of all
licensed dogs and the immediate execu-
ton of all unlicensed ones. The Pres
ident has taken the matter up and this
0as brought an added interest to the
situation.
There is a widely popular belief
among many medicoes and laymen
that death from hydrophobia is due,
not to the malignancy of the disease,
but to suggestion on the part of
the patient, whose fear of so horrible
a death eventually brings about such
a death as he had fancied A new
name coined to fit this death IS hydro
phobophobia. The death of William
Marsh, the wealthy Brooklyn man, has
been attributed to auto-suggestion by
the followers of this school because at
his request, physicians had told him
just what was the nature of his ILL
ness. In contradistinction to this
comes evidence from the other side.
A few days after the death of Marsh,
Captain Edward Rabey also died in
New York, his physicians pronouncing
the case a decided one of rabies and.
the point is this-he died without ever
knowing what his trouble was.
The primary preventive measure
against rabies lies in the muzzIing IF
dogs that the disease nav not spread
and infect other nlemb ers of The ari-
NAL kingdom. and pre- yenlion after in
lection lies in the treatment given at
Pasteur institutes. There The disease
is fought and conquered by lnocula-
tfons of the very virus that is poison
ing the patient. Pasteur as Dumas
said years ago when decorating him
with a great order, has taught how
a mortal poison may boone an inro-
cent preventative" 1t took Pastem
many years to prove this, for it was
the most dangerous of all his expert
ments. Where bacili of other diseases
could be cultivated in rabbit or chick
en- broth, the bacilli of rabies had to
be cultivated in living animals and
he and his assistants worked with
wild-eyed, ferocious beasts until they
found the prevention and cure of the
dread disease. He found that as GER
tain animals We're inoculated in sue
cession with the virus. the poison
grew weaker, but that after a certain
number of NEGOTIATIONS among rabbits
the strength of the poison increased
to a certain point and then remained
CONSTANT and he could procure a fixed
virus"
This virus is strongest in the spinal
cord of infected animals. so in Pas
teur institutes. now located wherever
rabies is prevalent the civilized world
over. two rabbits are painlessly inocu-
lated every day and eight days later,
when rabies has developed, are pain
lessly killed and the spinal cord ex-
tracted. This cord is hung up to dry
in bottle that has caustic potash
placed in the bottom, and from this
cord the grey liquid for inoculating
patients is made.
After he had upset the theory of
spontaneous life and established the
vitality of ferments, Pasteur turned
to the study of rabies. When he
proved the truth of his work by sue
cessfuI experiments in 1884 he opened !
a new door of hope to the world. It
was in July. 1885. in Paris, that he
first tried his powerful virus on human
beings. three peasants having come
all the way from Alsace to ask that
the experiments he had made on the
twenty dogs the year before be made /
on one of their number who had been
bitten. This was a success. and in !
less than year he had successfully ,
treated 6SS cases. and had changed the
death rate of rabies in Paris from one