STAMPING OUT A DISEASE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 41, 28 May 1910, Page 12

STAMPING OUT A DISEASE

The fact of a man: having died the I ■other in the Old Country oi hydrophobia,] ■brings home to our mimfe,. more clearly than almost any other circumstance could have done, how completely this dread disease, has beeir stamped out from amongst us. Hydrophobia is to-day,, sa far as England is concerned,, as extinct as the plague, leprosy, or the sweating sickness. Yet less than fifteen yours ago it was fairly common. The average mortality was then about one human being per ; week, and deaths from it attracted little attention. So late as 1895 no. fewer than 771 •mad dogs were running- wild in the midst of the populace, and in'that same year more than 200 human beings were bitten. Then came the stringent enforcement of the muzzling acts, and by 1002 only thirteen eases of rabies tfere reported) since when there has been none. On July 4th next exactly a quarter of a century will 'have elapsed since Pasteur inoculated against hydrophobia the first human ucirag. This was a little bov named Joseph Meister, aged nine years, who was shockingly ibitten by a rabid hoar-lioivnd.

As the dog was undoubtedly mad, and as there was practically no chance of the survival of the child in the ordinary course of events, Pasteur resolved on the momentous experiment, and for ten successive days inoculated the victim with hydrophobic virus, the strength of which was gradually increased. As a result the patient suffered no ill effects, and Pasteur woke up to find himself famous.