THE INDIAN MEDICAL GAZETTE.

50

Rio

SHItij Jmltiw Jljlftydinal feqtti}.

[Feb., and

Janeiro, Havanab,

two more will

BuenosAyres, while opened at Malta and

be

shortly

1889.

Chicago. The Paris Institute is in

THE PASTEUR INSTITUTE.

This institution has

recently

been

opened

in

great eclat, tiie ceremony being attendthe President of the French Republic, the

Paris with ed

by

principal members of the Institute and Academy, including the Due de Bioglie, Baron Alphonse de

M.

M. Laon

Jules Simon

Rothschild, Say, Bertrand, and a distinguished assembly which filled the library of the institute to overflowing. The following information regarding the financial position of the undertaking is supplied by a correspondent of the Field:? The building is very large and roomy with plenty of light and air, as the ground opposite

and M.

"

dence with

regular

all these

nearly

corresponthe

laboratories,

principals of which have spent Yanqueliu following the

time in the

some

method of M.

Rue

Pasteur." Dr. Graucher gave statistics regarding the operations of the Paris Institute and several of the others. The total number of inoculations up to the end of June last was 5,384, of which

2,682 had been effected in 1866, 1,386 in 1887 and

914

in the

The rate of died of

first

six

mouths

mortality including

while under treatment

hydrophobia

l-34 per cent, in

of 1888.

all those who

1886,

1*12

per cent, in

was

1887,

it is not built over, and the best possible use has been made of the money subscribed, which, as learnt from the interesting report read by

only *77 per cent, for the six months of 1888. But, of course, in order to arrive at a fair estimate of M. Pasteur's method, it is neces-

?103,467, of which the building itself, including the site, furniture, and laboratory instruments, cost ?62,551. This leaves a captital of not quite ?41,000 available for the endowment of the institute, which can-

sary to deduct all the deaths of patients who succumbed while under treatment, or within

to

the treasurer, amounted to

not be

reckoned upon than

to

produce

an

income of

?1,500 year; subscriptions are still coming in, while annual subsidies are granted by the Ministries of Public Instruction and Agriculture, and the State has also contributed its quota. But it will, of course, be more

most

a

but

desirable that the institute should be made

independent of the Government, and this it will be if the subscriptions contiuue to come in at anything like the rate they did at first." The most important feature of the ceremony was the reading of a report by Dr. Graucher of the origin and progress of the system of inoculations for the prevention

and

cure

of

hydrophobia. "

The

system," M. Graucher stated,

dently making headway;

for there

"is evi-

are

at

the

present time twenty establishments for inoculating against rabies, of which seven are in Russia (at Odessa, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw, Charkoff, Samara, and Tiflis), five in Italy (at Naples, Milan, Turin, Palermo, and Bologna), and one each at Vienna, Barcelona, Bucharest,

and "

a

of

fortnight

being inoculated, had

have

already

must

systems before they

came

the

they

in their

under M. Pasteur's the

Deducting these,

treatment.

because

poison

mortality

is

0'93 per cent, for 1886, 0*67 for 1887, and 0*55 for 1888. This decrease in the morta-

only

lity

is attributed

of the

more

by M. Pasteur to the adoption energetic and prolonged inocula-

tions which raised

attempted ;

so

much discussion when first

but M. Pasteur is doubtless

right,

for

who is at the head of the Odessa

M.

Gemaleia, laboratory, found that,

while the

simple

treat-

gave him a mortalapplied 6 of intensive treatthe nearly per cent., ity to 136 persons,

ment

ment gave him

a

mortality

of

only

0-8 per cent,

inoculatious. Similar results were obtained by the chief of the laboratory at "Warsaw, and Dr. Graucher cited some figures re-

out of 997

lating

to

the

mortality

which show that the lias at

ment

once

in the Paris

laboratory,

more severe course

reduced it

to

of treat-

below

1 per

cent."

figures supplied by other laboratories Petersburg, 484 inoculations, mortality 2*68 per cent.; Moscow, 500iuoculatons, mortality 1-40 ; Warsaw, 297 inoculations, morThe

are as

follows :?St.

CHILDBED FEVER.

Feb., 1889.] tality

3

without

per cent.?370 a

the intense system 335 inoculations, 2

by

death; Milan,

deaths; Palermo, 109 inoculations without a death; Naples, 246 inoculations, mortality 1*5;

Havanah, 170 inoculations, mortality 0'6 ; Rio Janeiro, 53 inoculations without a death. The institute is to be devoted not only to prosecuting researches regarding hydrophobia, but to the

investigation

of all other diseases Mr.

to be due to microbes.

in

an

able letter to the

presumed

Vincent

Richards, Englishman, points out

that the exclusion of persons who succumbed while under treatment or within a fortnight of

being inoculated, because they must already have poison in their systems, constitutes an

had the

admission which is fatal to the

pretensions

of

the system as a means of cure. If the inoculations are effective only while the poison is confined to the cicatrix, it is difficult, he urges, to see in what respect they are superior to the simpler plan of excising the cicatrix. And behind all statistics looms

the

question

of

the natural

among persons bitten by rabid anilarge proportion of whom, it is well

mortality mals; a known, are no

not

injection place in equally true

taken is

that is to say, into their tissues has

effectively bitten,

of

venom

consequence of the bite. This of injuries by venomous snakes,

and this fact must be borne in mind in with statistics and dotes in both

judging

cases.

dealing

of the value of anti-

51