Lord Doneraile died of hydrophobia yesterday week, and this is
the third death within a few days amongst M. Pasteur's patients. Yet Sir Henry Roscoe, in his inaugural address on Wednesday to the British Association, spoke of M. Pasteur's discovery of a cure for hydrophobia with the most absolute confidence. We venture to say that, so far as regards the inoculative cure of patients bitten by mad dogs before the inoculation, the Report of the Royal Commission to which Sir Henry alluded with so much pride, is absolutely ince& elusive. In the first place, there are no really trustworthy statistics to show what the average number of deaths among persons so bitten is, for the very excellent reason that nothing is less satisfactorily established than the madness of most of the dogs whose bite is supposed to be dangerous. Recently, M. Pasteur's patients have been dying in rapid succession ; nor is there, so far as we know, any disease which, once caught, has been shown to be rendered harmless by subsequent inoculations. Sir Henry is in too great a hurry to hymn the successes of M. Pasteur. Whatever Mr. Victor Horsley may have effected with dogs inoculated blbre the virus of the rabies is introduced into them, we feel quite sure that the statistics with reference to the effect of inoculation on human beings previously bitten by mad doge, are utterly untrustworthy.
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