Infection and immunity : with special reference to the prevention of infectious diseases / by George M. Sternberg.

Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Infection and immunity : with special reference to the prevention of infectious diseases / by George M. Sternberg. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    these cases the animal which inflicted the bite was proved to be rabid by experimental inoculations made in other animals—with an emulsion of the brain or spinal cord. This is now generally recog- nised as a conclusive demonstration that an animal, or man, from whom such virulent material has been obtained, was a victim of rabies. Perdrix (1890) in an analysis of the results obtained at the Pasteur Institute in Paris calls attention to the fact that the mortality among those treated has dimin- ished each year and ascribes this to improvements in the method employed. In the cases with severe wounds upon the head and face larger doses of the virulent material are used at more frequent intervals. Perdrix gives the following statistics with reference to the location of the bite as influencing the results of treatment. Bitten upon the head, 684; died, 12 = 1.75 <fo Bitten upon ihe hands, 4396; died, 9 = 0.2 ^ Bitten upon the limbs, 2839; died, 5 = 0.17 ^ Recently the statistics of the Pasteur Institute in Paris for a period of sixteen years (1886 to 1901) have been published. During this period 112 deaths occurred among 25,986 persons inoculated—a mor- tality of 0.43 It is not claimed that all of the inoculated had been bitten by rabid animals. In many cases it is impossible to ascertain whether the