The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 1887. M. PASTEUR AND HYDROPHOBIA.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1496, 2 March 1887, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 1887. M. PASTEUR AND HYDROPHOBIA.

The most terrible of all diseases known to man is undoubtedly hydrophobia, and although m Europe hundreds of its victims have annually perished it is only within recent years that medical science has been able to devise a certain remedy. For that remedy the world is indebted to the patient research and indomitable perseverance of M. Pasteur, who following up the first principle of homoeopathy, similia similibus curantur, has at great personal risk conducted a long series of experiments by inoculation of animals with the virus of the dreaded disease, and claims to have discovered a sure method of neutralising the effects of the poison communicated to the human system by the bites of rabid animals. The virus used for inoculation is attenuated by being passed through the veins of a succession of organisms before being used upon the human subject, and it 13 claimed for M. Pasteui's method that it is almost certain m its remedial operation if the patient be treated m time. Patients have been sent to him from all parts of the world, some bitten by mad dogs, others by wolves and other animals subject to attacks of rabies, or to whom it has been communicated by the bites of rabid animals, and it seemed to have been established that by M. Pasteur's treatment recovery from the attack of hydrophobia was under ordinary circumstances nearly certain. We say seemed, because until recently we understood that the success of the Pasteur method was a proven and an accepted fact, and that it is at least believed to be so by a large number of persons, including many leading scientists, is shown by the ready response which has been made to a proposal to present M. Pasteur with some- substantial acknowledgement of the great boom which his labors and genius have conferred on mankind — a movement to that end having resulted, as we read recently, m the raising of no less a sum than .£60,000. It is, therefore with considerable surprise that it will now be learned that the success of M. Pasteur's system of inoculation is questioned, it being alleged that at least some of the patients who have been treated were impostors, and were not m need of medical treatment at all —never having been bitten, and that m other cases where the patients were genuine ones inoculation has resulted m the development, instead of the cure of hydrophobia. It appears that even M. Pasteur himself does not regard the system of inoculating with attenuated virus at first practised by himself as wholly satisfactory and has since resorted to the use of a moreintense virus, treatment with which, however, he claims to be infallible. As against the validity of that claim the following case is quoted. It appeais that a workman nameßevaillac, residing at Bellevide was bitten m the thumb by his master's dog. A veterinary surgeon examined the dog, certified it was mad, and ordered it to be killed, which was done. Two days later Revaillac was treated at Pasteur's laboratory, and for twelve days consecutively, was inoculated by the " new system" three times daily. Until the 12th December last his health continued good. Then set m the usual symptoms of dog hydrophobia, save that the pain, which is usually experienced where the wound was inflicted, was m this case felt where the skin had been punctured for the purpose of injecting the virus; and secondly it was paralysis, not convulsions that led up to death. These facts were related to the Academy of Sciences by Dr Peter, the eminent Professor of Pathology, and it is now asked " Does the Pasteur remedy, m curing an old disease, develop a new and more formidable one ?" Again, as regards the statement that m at least some cases the great chemist has been imposed upon, the following instance is given : — <• Prince Zaghill sent ten Russian soldiers to Paris to be inoculated. They were said to have been bitten by the same dog — the animal was duly killed. The soldiers were inoculated according to the new process by Pasteur, and they were sent home, having been declared cured. They are now m prison ; they confessed the dog was not mad at all ; ttiey conspired to be bitten, m order to secure a trip to Paris and a spree." Altogether it seems clear that further enquiry needs to be made before the exact value of the Pasteur system can be determined, and meantime it is not very reassuring to find it asserted

positively by the Paris correspondent of a contemporary, from wlide letter we gather the facts above quoted, that, notwithstanding the number of persons treated by M. Pisteur, " the total number, m France, of annual deaths, certified to be due to hydrophobia, have not diminished as compared with the years before either ihe mild or the strong process of inoculation was adopted."