The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-09-13

opinion merely; one good pathol- ogist will believe fthe microscopic section he examines shows such bodies, while another equally com petent laboratory pathologist scru- tinizes the same microscopic section and believes what his colleague takes for negri bodies are actually red blood corpuscles of irregular type. But of course the public gets the benefit of the doubt and the laboratory report of the examina- tion of the animals brain comes back positive" and another rabies scare is on.
 Pasteur virus or any modification of it used for the preventive in- oculation of persons bitten by dogs presumed to have had rabies. is a shot in the dark in the truest sense of the term. Nobody knows what he is doing when he injects such virus. Nobody has ever determined the character of it. No one has found the cause of rabies. We have no actual scientific test by which we can make sure in any case whether or not the disease is rabies It is all an empirical question. and my opinion is just as good as the opinion of any other doctor. I know nothing about the actual | cause of death in any of the 15 cases in the Los Angeles County hospital records in that 10-year period. The records show that | ''Pasteur treatment" was instituted in from one to three days after l the victim was bitten in six cases, but no "Pasteur treatment" was | given in six cases, and in the other | three the matter was not men toned in the records. Not very convincing. as to the preventive value of the method.
 Personally. if I were bitten by a dog or other animal, or scratched by animal or fowl I should want immediate first aid disinfection of the wound or scratch with iodin and a suitable sterile or antiseptic dressing. Then I should want an immediate prophylactic dose of anti-tetanic serum Qockjaw anti toxin) and second dose of the same serum in a week or 10 days. That is all. I should, not want such a wound cauterized or otherwise atrociously treated. I should not want any Pasteur virus injected. l Indeed it is because Pasteur virus or anti-rabic vaccine is so crude 1 and unscientific that I should hate to receive or give any of it in any case.
 The Los Angeles County hospital is one of the largest if not the larg- est institutions in the country. These IS cases in 10 years fairly represent the incidence of alleged rabies. In all IS cases the diagnosis was of course matter of opinion.
 In four of the cases, as my co!- league who believes in human rabies says, 1t was "conclusively proven by animal inoculation. satis- flying Koch's postulate." But he Is in error about satisfying Kochs | postulate or rule of law. In order | to do that one must first isolate the specific germ, culture it outside of the body, then inoculate animals with the pure culture and produce the characteristic signs of the dis ease. and finally recover from these animals the specific germ or organ
 ism. The inoculation of an animal such as guineapig or rabbit with material removed from the brain or spinal cord of a person who has died of tetanus. say, would be. like ly to produce effects such as were | observed in these Los Angeles 1 cases. However. that test Is all blind groping and has no scientific foundation.