Vivisection and the diseases of animals.

  • Fleming, George, 1833-1901.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vivisection and the diseases of animals. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    8/11 (page 475)
    geographical distribution of the disease, the destruction it works among animals, and the deaths it causes in mankind. By means of this discovery, made through experiments on living animals in the laboratory, this scourge, hitherto irrestrainable and incurable, is now completely under the control of man, all over the world.4 The discovery is greater even than that of vaccination, inasmuch as that was only applicable to the one disease, small-pox; whereas this method can probably be applied to many contagious diseases besides anthrax. The same method of cultivation and inoculation so success- ful with anthrax had already been adopted in the fatal pestilence of poultry known as ' fowl-cholera,' a disease which is very contagious and incurable, so that it clears out poultry-yards in an incredibly short time. By inoculating fowls with the cultivated virus of the malady, they are rendered proof against it. Rabies and hydrophobia (if we may employ the two designations for one disease) are only too famiKar to the public by the terror they inspire. Much of the knowledge we possess with regard to rabies, particularly as to its symptoms and latency, has been derived from inoculation experiments on animals: but no cure has yet been found for it; and the preventive measures are merely those of police, consisting in destroying rabid or suspected animals, keeping down the number of ownerless dogs, and guarding against the infliction of bites. Experiment has disproved what was long believed, that the virus exists in the saliva alone ; and now it is not only ascertained that it is to be found in other fluids, and especially in the brain and spinal cord, but that it is more virulent in these than elsewhere. In no other disease is the latent period so uncertain and prolonged; and often weary months of painful suspense have to be endured before it is known whether safety to a bitten person or animal is possible. Inocu- lation experiments with the brain-fluid of a rabid dog have developed the disease in a week or fortnight, the inoculated animal dying from acute rabies in about three weeks. And a more important discovery still, with regard to this frightful malady, has recently been made by Galtier. By the injection of the virus of rabies directly into the circulation, not only is the disease not produced, but, after exhibiting slight fever, the animals are protected from contagion in future. Ten sheep have been in this way rendered resistent, while the same virus introduced beneath the skin of others which had not received injec- tion has produced fatal effects. Graltier is inclined to believe that this injection of the virus into a blood-vessel might even prevent the development of rabies after an animal (or perhaps a human being) has been bitten by a mad dog. But it is more than probable that for 4 I have already suggested the adoption of the method for anthrax in India and South Africa, as well as for other diseases in these countries, and other portions of our dominions.