I crossed the lawn and entered a large waiting-room occupying the
middle of the building devoted to laboratory work. The room is flooded
with light, seated with benches, and decorated with no other ornaments
than a series of photographs of the Pasteur Institute at Rio
Janeiro, two great maps on which are marked the cities where
institutions similar to this at Paris are to be found, and cards
containing certain rules applicable to patients coming for treatment
against hydrophobia. Among these latter the important ones are that
the treatment is gratuitous, that each patient must bathe before
coming for inoculation, that board and lodging are not furnished, and
that the grateful may, if they wish, leave a gift at the end of
their term of treatment.
There were sixty or seventy persons in the room. They had come to be
vaccinated against hydrophobia. They were of the greatest contrast in
age, in condition, in culture. Beside a shrivelled, leather-brown Arab
woman from the desert was a pink and white little miss from London. A
young man with the refined face, correct dress and distinguished
manners of a gentleman sat beside a huge and none-too-clean German
laborer. As a rule, it was a friendly, cheerful company. It was only
here and there that one saw a person who seemed conscious that in his
veins a hideous poison was at work. Most of them took it for granted
that their cure was certain. Some of them scoffed at the nonsense of
going to the trouble of being vaccinated.
A dignified liveried servant entered, calling "Attention." The company
bestirred itself and disappeared. I made my way to the inoculating
room.
The operation of inoculating for hydrophobia is founded on the theory
that if an "attenuated" microbe, that is a microbe so treated that its
power of doing harm has been reduced to a low degree, is introduced
into a body, it will produce an indisposition which is not itself
serious, but which is sufficient to render the body proof against
attacks of the original microbe.
Now M. Pasteur has discovered that it is possible to so treat a
microbe that its power of evil is of any degree; that is, to "exalt"
as well as to "attenuate" it. Having these microbes of varying
strengths he invented a method of graduated vaccination; that is, by
beginning with a virus of low degree, and increasing each day the
strength of the virus, an operator arrives at a point where he can
vaccinate a body with a virus stronger than there is any danger of its
ever being exposed to in nature. He thus secures lasting immunity.
Thus, in vaccinating against rabies, the patient is treated first with
a weak virus; this is followed by one more powerful, and so on, until
at the end a highly "exalted" one is injected safely.
[Illustration: M. PASTEUR AT THIRTY.]
It is this treatment which is practised daily at the Pasteur
Institute, in the inoculation room where I found myself.
Gathered in a kind of pen formed by a little fence were three members
of the institution: a secretary, whose business it is to keep track of
the number of persons to be treated with each particular virus; an
assistant, who has prepared the virus for the day's use; twelve small
wine glasses of cloudy liquid protected by small paper funnels; and,
by a table, the inoculator. The roll was called and a half dozen men
entered the room. They were to be inoculated with a virus of the
lowest strength, most of them for the first time. They showed a
bewildered and comic embarrassment as the attendant directed them to
bare the hypogastrium. The embarrassment changed to a momentary look
of distress as they felt their arms pinned behind their backs, and the
sharp needle injected a syringeful of virus into the delicate flesh.
The first class of men and boys passed out, and the women and little
children entered. They were succeeded by a second class, and so on
until all had been treated.
The simplicity of the operation seemed out of proportion to the horror
of the disease. I remembered the shrugs I had seen and the doubts I
had heard expressed over the treatment. "It is not sure yet." "It does
not always work; such-a-one died, you know." "They have not found the
microbe either." My faith was shaking. Evidently I must see Doctor
Roux.
On the second floor of the building I found the office and private
laboratory of the under-director of the Pasteur Institute, a man
whose researches in connection with Pasteur, whose devotion in the
cholera mission in Egypt in 1883, and whose independent investigations
on diphtheria, have made him famous in the medical world. The office
was small, and it had something of the attraction of a curio shop.
There was none of the precision of the man of small affairs here. It
was the confusion of the man of big affairs, who cannot endure to have
his things meddled with. Over a table where culture tubes, blow-pipes,
virus glasses and bottles filled with suspicious-looking fluids were
scattered promiscuously around a valuable microscope, hung a gem of a
painting--a dashing charge of cavalry. Beside a case of books, and
partly concealing a fine portrait of Pasteur, hung the gray-white
laboratory blouses of M. Roux. Under an exquisite etching askew in a
corner stood a cage of brown-and-white guinea-pigs, martyrs to
science, probably.
[Illustration: AT THE JUBILEE OF M. PASTEUR. THE PRESIDENT OF THE
REPUBLIC WELCOMING M. PASTEUR IN THE AMPHITHEATRE OF THE OLD SORBONNE.]
Curiosity was cut short, for a quick step was heard in the outer room,
and Doctor Roux entered. A slight figure, bent a little from a life
spent over books, tubes and microscopes, but tingling to the
finger-tips with nervous energy; a face a little pale, but fresh in
color; brown hair and beard, glowing brown eyes, perhaps forty
years--such is this eminent associate of Pasteur. As he runs over the
pile of letters cut and awaiting him, he talks.
"So you have just seen the inoculation? Do I believe it a sure cure?"
The doctor lays down his letters as he repeats the latter question in
an astonished tone. "Of course I do. There is nothing surer in medical
science. Look at these figures." He rises and draws out from the midst
of a pile of papers a big black _serviette_, fumbles for a moment
among the documents it contains, and pulls out the latest report made
by the Institute on the results of vaccination for hydrophobia, that
for 1891.
"Now listen to these figures. In 1886 the Pasteur made its first
report: 2,671 persons were vaccinated that year against hydrophobia;
25 of them died--.94 of one per cent. In 1887, 1,770 persons were
treated; 13 died--.73 of one per cent. In 1888, 1,622 were treated; 9
died--.55 of one per cent. In 1889, 1,830 were treated; 7 died--.38 of
one per cent. In 1890, 1,540 were treated; 5 died--.32 of one per
cent. In 1891, 1,559 were treated; 3 died--.19 of one per cent. You
notice each year the per cent. of deaths has been lower. In the six
years the treatment has been reported, we average just about one-half
of one per cent of loss. Tell me where you find a treatment surer?"
"But you have not found the microbe?"
"Humph! that does not prevent the method working. It is aggravating
not to have found him. It prevents, possibly, the simplification of
the inoculation process. Nevertheless it works. So does vaccination
for small-pox. We do not know the microbe of small-pox. There is much
we do not know yet. Remember, too, that it was only in 1880 that M.
Pasteur made up his mind to begin an exhaustive study of hydrophobia,
and that all he foresaw at first was the possibility of vaccinating
dogs against rabies, and that it was only in 1885 that the first
person, little Joseph Meister, was inoculated, after a council of
physicians had decided that his death was certain, and that his life
was saved."