MR. VICTOR HORSLEY ON THE PASTEUR SYSTEM.
pro THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR...1
Sia,—Two years ago, Dr. Bell Taylor, in a paper read at the Nottingham Medico-Chirurgical Society, endeavoured to support the futile thesis that rabies did not exist. It seems that he has since endured some education on this point, but that he is anxious to propagate some more of his ideas, unfor- tunately again misleading, on the subject. For the sake of humanity and scientific truth, it is perhaps as well that the -actual facts which he distorts should be known to your readers.
(1.) It is not a fact, as stated by Dr. Taylor, that deaths from hydrophobia have increased in France owing to the formation of the Pasteur Institute ; but it is a fact that the work of the Institute has led to the complete provision of correct statistics on the subject, and to the establishment of preventive legislation.
(2.) Dr. Bell Taylor insinuates that the inoculation process Is a risk to the patient. The method and its records prove the exact contrary.
(3.) Dr. Bell Taylor asserts that the majority of M. Pasteur's patients are not attacked by /slid animals. The real fact is that an exceedingly small minority belong to this doubtful class. Dr. Bell Taylor continues to misrepresent the subject of statistics further on. I am compelled to say misrepresent, for he is well aware that M. Pasteur's statistics are not "simply statistics of dog-bite or dog-lick such as we have all experienced some time or other ;" but that the cases, from the beginning of his work four years ago, have always been divided into three classes, of which the first, Class A, includes those patients bitten by dogs proved to be rabid by experimental inoculation ; the second, Class B, embraces those bitten by animals certified to be rabid by qualified veterinary surgeons ; and the third, Class C, is formed by the small minority just alluded to, in which the rabidity of the animal was not scientifically estab- lished.
Dr. Bell Taylor says the mortality among all these cases should be "one in a million." As a matter of fact, the death- rate in Class A among people not treated by M. Pasteur is 150,000 in 1,000,000—that is to say, one in seven of such cases dies with absolute certainty—whereas of such cases treated by M. Pasteur, only one in one hundred dies. I trust this will prevent Dr. Taylor from bringing forward again his hopelessly erroneous estimates and beliefs.
He refers finally to certain statements regarding the pre- valence of rabies, which may or may not have been true many years ago ; but the records of all veterinary surgeons and of the police show that they are ridiculously false when applied to the present time. These additional errors are but rechauffes of Dr. Bell Taylor's worn-out and oft-refuted beliefs, and it is hard upon your readers that he should have revived them at this time when we have been long in possession of irrefutable data.—I am, Sir, &c., VICTOR HORSLEY. 80 Park Street, Grosvenor Square, W.
P.S.—I would recommend all those really interested in the subject to read the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Rabies in Dogs, 1887.
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