M. PASTEUR'S " PERFECTED " SYSTEM. [To THE EDITOR OF
TEE SPECCITOE."]
Sin,—Reading last week that subscriptions were being raised in Shrewsbury to enable the Medical Officer of Health for that place to take nine people to Paris for M. Pasteur's preventive treatment of hydrophobia, I thought that if these people had been warned that in submitting to M. Pasteur's present treat- ment they run a greater risk of death from " paralytic rabies " than of death from hydrophobia, they would probably have in- sisted upon staying at home. A greater risk, because they are certain to have already adopted the best possible method of preventing hydrophobia, in the cauterisation of their wounds ; but what is to protect them from the results of M. Pasteur's "intensive " treatment, should that go wrong ? And certainly, since M. Pasteur " perfected " his system, his patients have been dying mac h faster than before.
It was in September that M. Pasteur announced, in a com- munication read to the Academy of Sciences, that " a sad experience" (clearly the many deaths from hydrophobia of those his treatment professed to save) " had taught him the necessity of inoculating with a more intense virus." The former method was even spoken of disparagingly, as "the old system of mild injections," and it was prophesied that in the coming year, and with the more intense treatment, the deaths of his patients would be fewer than in the year that was past. And this com- munication, described by " Paris correspondents" as " bristling " with important facts, was received with "even more than the customary enthusiasm." This was in September ; and in October occurred the first death from "paralytic rabies," when a man in the prime of life, soon after his return from Paris, complained of severe pain in the region of the inoculation, which pain was quickly followed by prostration, paralysis, and death. The poisonous virus that under the "old system" was " attenuated " to harmlessness, had in its more intense form done the work that might have been expected of it; and so rapidly since then have the deaths of M. Pasteur's patients increased, that while at the close of last year they were fifty-three, by March let they were sixty-nine ! And this, though the number of those who go to M. Pasteur is fast declining, and would soon cease altogether if this last communication, with its results, could have half the publicity given to it that this "brilliant discovery" met with upon its first introduction. For in it, M. Pasteur has himself hopelessly condemned his whole system—as he admits that " mild in-
jections " will not save from hydrophobia—and as it is prove& that his more intense or " perfected " treatment, kills by "paralytic rabies I"
Failure as the whole thing is, and deserves to be, Pasteur Institutes have already been established in three or four countries in Europe, and in the one at Milan, patients are given to under- stand that they will not be inoculated unless they have first had their wounds cauterised ! And, virtually, it is the same with M. Pasteur's patients, so very rarely has the precaution been neglected that is insisted upon by his wise pupil in Milan.
If it were not for the sin and the shame of it, what a farce the whole thing has been !—but happily now almost played out,. as is shown from the following extract from one of the French papers. About a year ago, the Conseil Municipal of Paris voted M. Pasteur valuable land as a site for his proposed Insti- tute ; and in connection with this vote, the following resolution was lately proposed :—" In consideration of the fact that M. Pasteur, on account of his frequent failures, has altered his treatment, and substituted his so-called intensified method ; and as since the introduction of this method not a week has passed without cases of madness quite different from the ordinary form, and known as rage de laboratoire, having declared themselves after the anti-rabic vaccination ; and as it is evident that M. Pasteur's system, instead of producing favourable results, is a real danger, I have the honour of proposing to the Council to revoke its previous votes in favour of the Pasteur Inetitate, and I invite M. le Prefet to take steps to suspend their execution." And who can doubt that such steps will be taken, and all thoughts of the "Pasteur Institute" abandoned P —I am, Sir,
S. W.
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