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[Entered at the Post Office of New York, N. Y., an Second Class Matter. Copyrighted, 1890, by Munn & Co.]

A WEEKLY JOURNAL OF PRACTICAL INFORMATION, ART, SCIENCE, MECHANICS, CHEMISTRY, AND MANUFACTURES.

Vol. LXIII.-No. 1.
ESTABLISHED 1845.

NEW YORK, JULY 5, 1890.

$3.00 A YEAR.
WEEKLY.

M. PASTEUR.

In front of the Pasteur Institute, in Paris, is a bronze statue of a French shepherd boy engaged in a death struggle with a mad dog which had been worrying his sheep. With his bare hands, and with no weapon save his wooden sabot, the boy killed the dog, but was horribly bitten in the fight, and this statue represents an actual struggle which took place in October, 1885. The event gave the now famous French savant his first prominent opportunity of experimenting with his anti-rabie treatment upon a human being. The treatment was successful, and from that time to this many thousands of persons who have been bitten by rabid animals, of all countries and all stations in life, have been visitors to Pasteur's laboratory, to receive such treatment as would insure them, so far as human science could do so, against a horrible death. The French nation raised a monument to the discoverer of this anti-rabie treatment in the shape of the "Pasteur Institute," and there are now many similar institutions in various parts of the world, including one in New York City. Pasteur commenced his researches on rabies and hydrophobia in 1880, when little was known of the disease except that the virus was contained in the dog's saliva. He first proved by experiment that the disease was one localized in the nerve centers, finding that a portion of the matter of the spinal column

of a rabid dog, when injected into a healthy one, causes rabies much more certainly and rapidly than does the injection of the saliva. This also explains the varying times of attack of the disease after a bite, the virus having to travel up the spinal cord before the symptoms can manifest themselves. The next problem was to weaken the virus, which proved a difficult and somewhat complicated task, as previous attempts to cultivate the special microbe of rabies outside the animal body had failed. But Pasteur's perseverance and method overcame the difficulty, and he succeeded in so far weakening the poison that in his hands it lost its virulent effects, while yet remaining potent enough to act as a preventive, so that dogs inoculated with this weakened virus might be bitten with impunity by mad dogs.

The Pasteur treatment has been virulently attacked because it has not always been successful; but this is something which has never been claimed for vaccination for any form of disease. It is estimated that from fifteen to twenty persons out of every hundred bitten by mad dogs or cats develop hydrophobia, but in 2,164 persons treated at the Pasteur Institute to January, 1887, there was a mortality of only 1/4 per cent, while in 1887 the mortality was reduced to 1/3 per cent. and in 1888 to 1/16 per cent. As touching this point, Sir Henry Roscoe says: "Pasteur's treatment is really a

race between a strong and an attenuated virus. In cases in which the bite occurs near a nerve center, the fatal malady may outstrip the treatment in the race between life and death. If the weakened virus can act in time, it means life; if the strong virus acts first, prevention comes too late, and it means death. So that the treatment is not doubtful in all cases, but only in those which are under well known unfavorable conditions."

But it is not alone for his successful treatment and prevention of hydrophobia that M. Pasteur is entitled to a high place among the scientists and benefactors of the age. In 1857 he inaugurated researches on the action of the mould in the changes it effects on tartaric acid and the process of fermentation, which pointed the way to scientific improvements in brewing and wine making of the greatest value, and were said to be the stepping stones of the present science of bacteriology. He proved that the changes occurring in each of the various processes of fermentation are due to the presence and growth of a minute organism, that every peculiar fermentative change is accompanied by the presence of a special ferment, and this he proved by the most careful experimental inquiry, joined with the artificial cultivation of these organisms. In a visit to a large London brewery, in 1871, he explained by the use of a microscope the cause of a serious state of

M. PASTEUR IN HIS CABINET AT THE PASTEUR INSTITUTE, PARIS.