Pasteur’s Hydrophobic Inoculations

Originally published in the Eastern Medical Journal on October 1, 1886

Pasteur has used it with marked success in the treatment of rabies; he does not claim that he can cure the disease, but from numerous experiments upon animals he believes that its development can be prevented even after the person or animal has been bitten by a rabid dog. His method is to commence with a virus so far reduced, by exposing it to dry air, as to render it harmless when introduced into the human system ; the next day he uses a stronger virus and so on until he introduces that which has been exposed only for one day and which is so strong that had it been used in the first instance it would have produced the most violent form of hydrophobia, but when injected in the gradual series is perfectly harmless.

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