Report on M, Pasteur's Researches on Rabies and the Treatment of Hydrophobia by Preventive Inoculation
Authors: M. W. Vignal
Journal: BMJ (1886)

PA n T 1. M. 1PASTEU'iS FiiRsT ExrEnInNIE s.-FACTS coONcEr._1N(GTHE TT.ANS-MIs sION Or HYnurnboalA.-Inbation-Period ahortened by Inoeul4ting thc Virus benea!t the Dura Mater.-AIForms of Iydro- phobia proeccd from the same Virs.-Symptomsare ezessively Varied.-The Saliva in Rabics may provoke Death from Three Dif- ferent Causes.-ThcJfedidla Oblongata, Spinal Cord, and Eacepha- lon ofRabid Subjects are Virulent.-Virizlenceafected by Decomposi- tio o.-Diffcrentffethods of ILocutation and their Jiesults.-TheNature of Rabics Confirmed by the Quan?tity of Inoclkaion Fheli Injeced.-Futriotus Madness produeed b1y a Smnaller Quantity of Virus than Paralytic Madness.-Virusdoes not Travcl alang the Peripheral N'crres to the Central Nervous System.-InitiaZPeriod of Jfadness dlscappears; the Symptoms reappear after a long Interral, anl Resutlt in Death.-DogsRendered Refraetor-yto Jfadness by Inocuation.-A Stu iamary of Facts.M1. PASTEU R's FIRST EXPtIKXINITS.-M.Pasteur's first experi- ments in conLnection with hydrophobia were made in December, 1880.He collected, by means of-a camel's hair brush, some mucus from the mouth of a child aged 9 years, which had died from hydrophobia in M. Lannelongue's wards in the St. Eu&4nie Hospital.The child had been bitten in the face by a mad dog inL a villa e-Choisy-le-Roi -near Paris.It was asertained beyond doubt that the dog was mad.The mucus was removed from the child four hours after death.Two rabbits were inoculated with it i these died thirty-six hours after- wards.Other rabbits were then inoculated from them, some with the saliva, others with the blood.The second series of rabbits died more rapidly after inoculation than the first, the third series more rapidly than the second, and so on, through several successive series of ani- mals.Al. Pasteur and his pupils, MMr.Chamberlaud and Roux, who helped him to carry out his experiments, detected in the blood of the animals experimented on the presence of a micrococcus presenting the aspect of a figure of 8, indicative of a diplococcus.(Subsequent researches have demonstrated that it was a diplococcus present in normal human saliva') M. Pasteur cultivated this diplococcus in veal-broth, through several successive generations.He observed that, when it was used for inoculating rabbits, death resulted, accompanied by the same symptoms as those which followed the noculations made with the saliva and blood removed from the first series of rabbits, which had been inoculated from the saliva taken from the child dead from hydro-Ihobia.This microbe, then, appeared "to be the veritable and sole factor in the new malady."'M. Pasteur, not being certain whether the condition called into existence by his inoculations was identical with hydrophobia, pre- sented his note to the Academy of Sciences, headed " Sur une Maladie Nouvelle provoquee par la Salive dun Enfant mort de la Rage " (On a New Disease produced by the Saliva of a Child dead from Hydrophobia).MI.Pasteur seriously doubted that the illness caused by his inoculations was hydrophobia, and stated, in his note to the Academy, that the auimals experimented on died without passmg through an incubation-period ; whereas M. Gsaltier, Professor at the Veterinary School of Lyons,: had observed that rabbits inoculated from rabid dogs did not exhibit symptoms of hydrophobia until from four to forty days after inoculation1; neither }lad-M.Galtier observed the lesions at the necropsies of his aninmals that M1.Pasteur had ascertained to exist in his-an emphysematous condi#n of the areolar tissue of the groins oye edistercteuidsAcec.,18,tmci .12 and axille, areas of pulmonary apoplexy, and swelling of the lymph- atic glands of the trachea, groin, and axillie, accompanied by bsmmorrhage.The condition of the blood closely resembled that of animals dead from charbon.Blood removed from M. Galtier's rabbits, which died from hydrophobia, did not communicate the malady to other rabbits.Dogs inoculated with the blood or saliva taken from M.