THE PASTEUR TREATMENT .
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In the interest of your readers who may have been disturbed in their confidence in the efficacy of the treatment against hydrophobia after being bitten, discovered and practised since 1886 by L. Pasteur, will you allow me to rectify in the lines following the erroneous statements con- tained in the letter to the Spectator (page 816) over Mr. Arnold Lupton's signature ?
Since the invention of the preventive treatment of hydro- phobia after bites, practised at the Paris Pasteur Institute from 1888 to December 31st, 1928-43,347 persons bitten by mad dogs have been treated. The number of deaths, notwithstanding the treatment, has not been 3,000, as Mr. Lupton states, but 112 only, 0.2 per cent, whereas, before Pasteur's antirabic treatment was applied, the proportion of deaths, when the victims had been bitten in the limbs, was 20 per cent and 80 per cent when bitten in the head.—I am,
Sir, &c., DR. Roux. Institut Pasteur, 25 Rue Dubois, Paris XVieme.
[We are glad to publish this translation of a letter from Dr. Roux, in reply to Mr. Arnold Lupton's letter in our issue of November 30th.—En. Spectator.]
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