Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1884 — WONDERFUL DISCOVERY. [ARTICLE]

WONDERFUL DISCOVERY.

TL Paztsur Zi Sara He Em Found an Antidoti for Hydrophobia. That eminent scientist, M. Pasteur, who has made so many important disooverietduring the past few years bearing upon the health of man, not alone in the domain of eaase and effect, bnt also in the very practical direction of furnishing remedies for ailments considered incurable, has now added to his laurels by discovering a remedy for hydrophobia, which has hitherto been considered fatal when once it had obtained a foothold in the system. The following cable dispatch to the Chicago Tribune, setting forth the details of his remedy —which is simply inoculation for a preventive, like vaccination to prevent small-pox —and giving the details of the method he employed in his experiments with dogs, monkeys, and rabbits, will be found extremely interesting: M. Louis Pasteur, the celebrated French chemist, o'.atms to have made a disoovery <<t the most vital importance—nothing less, in fact, than a oomplete cure, or rather antidote, for hydrophobia. In an Interview w.th a Figaro correspondent M. Past ursays: ‘Cauterization of the wound Immediately after the bite, as is well known, has been more or leas effective, but from to-day anybody bitten by a mad doir has only to present himself at the Laboratory of the Eoole Normals and by inoculation I will make him oomi lately insusceptible te the effects of hydrophobia, even It bitten subsequently by any number of mad dogs. I have be n devoting the last four years to this subject. I found out In the tirst place that the virus rabiqne loses its Intensity by transm sslon to certain animals and increases Us intensity by transmission to other animals. With the rabbit, for lnstanoe, the vims ruinous inoreases; with the monkey It decreases. My method was as follows: I took the Tims direct from the brain of a dog that died from aente hydrophobia. With this virus I Inoculated a monkey. The monkey died. Then with the virus already weakened In, Intensity, taken from this monkov, I Inoculated a second monkey. Then with the virus taken from the second monkey I inoculated a tht d monkey, and so on ontll I obtained a virus so weak as to be almost harmless. Then with this almost harmless virus I Inoculated a rabblt.the virus being at once ineneased in Intensity. Then with the virus from the tlr.-t rabbit I inoculated a second rabbit, and there was another increase In the intensity of the virus. Then with the virus of the second rabbit I inoculated a third rabbit, then a fourth, until the virus had regained its maximum Intensity. Tims 1 obtained virus of different degrees of power. I then took a dog and Inoculated him first with the weakest virus from the ra libit, then with the virus from the second rabbit, and finally with the rabbit virus of maximum intensity. After a lew days more 1 inoculated the dog with virus directly from the brain of a dog that had just died of acute madness. The dog upon whioh I experimented proved complete/ insusceptible to hydrophobia. The exiierlment was frequently repeated, always with the same snooessful result. “But my disoovery does not end here. I took two dogs and lnoonlated them both with Tiros taken directly from a dog that had just died of acute hydrophobia. I let one of my two dogs thus Inoculated alone and he went mad and died of acute hydrophobia. I subjected the second dog to my treatment, giving him the three rabbit Inoculations, beginning with the weakest and ending with the strongest. The second dog was completely cured, or rather became completely insusceptible to hydrophobia." M. Pasteur then went to a kennel and caressed a dog tiiat bad undergone this latter operation. BaldM. Pasteur: “Whoever gets bitten by a mad dog has only to submit to my three Little inoculations and ho need not hare the allghteat fear of hydrophobia.