LTO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR." J
SIR,—Mr. Victor Horsley has evidently been misinformed. There is no truth whatever in his assertions respecting my views as to rabies, or my sentiments regarding M. Pasteur. Mr. Horsley assures your readers that the records of the deaths from hydrophobia in France prior to M. Pasteur's so- -called wonderful discovery were not to be depended upon. I cannot agree with him. These returns have always been very strictly kept; they are quite as reliable as our own Registrar- General's reports, and for twenty-five years they show that the proportion of deaths from hydrophobia was 30 per annum for the whole of France (Tardieu and Brouardel). Well, Sir, M. Pasteur commenced his work about four years ago, and during the last three years the number of deaths from hydrophobia in that country has risen to 43 per annum, most of the unfortunates having been inoculated. Surely this does not look like stamping out hydrophobia in France. Now as to M. Pasteur's English patients. Pro- fessor Leblanc, the eminent veterinary surgeon of the Parisian Academie de Medecine, assures us that out of one hundred people bitten by dogs undeniably mad, only five would succumb to hydrophobia; and it is notorious that the great majority of M. Pasteur's English patients have not been bitten by mad dogs at all, and were in no danger what- ever, and yet (excluding those cases inoculated within twelve months, and who cannot yet be considered out of danger) the proportion of deaths among these patients has been over 6 per cent. Surely that does not look like stamping out hydro- phobia in England. Mr. Horsley attributes the deaths which have followed M. Pasteur's inoculations to the lack of skill or imprudence of M. Pasteur's pupils outside France ; but, Sir, inasmuch as M. Pasteur is not a qualified medical man, he is bound by the laws of France to employ pupils or assistants who are qualified. It must, therefore, necessarily be the pupil who operates, whether the injection is performed in France or elsewhere. I know I shall be told that the operations in France are, nevertheless, conducted under the immediate supervision of M. Pasteur ; it cannot, however, always be so, for M. Pasteur is necessarily frequently absent, sometimes for long periods. He was, for instance, taking a long holiday in Italy when the late Lord Doneraile applied for treatment ; so that it appears to me that it cannot matter much whether the operations are performed in Paris or elsewhere. Mr. Horsley, however, assures us that M. Pasteur's pupils in other countries have now attained the same measure of success which he says has characterised the efforts of M. Pasteur himself. Well, for my part, I don't think that assurance is very consoling. Anyway, last month (June, 1889), five persons died from hydrophobia after being inoculated a is Paste ttr by one of M. Pasteur's pupils at Turin, and so great was the scare created in consequence, that the Italian Government have been compelled to shut up their Pasteur Institute; and on the 2nd of the present month (July, 1889), three other cases of death followed in persons inoculated by another Italian pupil, Baratieri, one possessing M. Pasteur's confidence in a special degree. In fact, Sir, to subject a person who is well and in no danger of hydrophobia to the ghastly risk attendant upon the hypodermic injection of rabid matter merely because he happens to have been bitten or licked by a dog, is such a monstrous outrage that one cannot understand how any well- informed individual can tolerate the idea for a moment, and yet this is unquestionably the position (even accepting Mr. Horsley's own indefensible figures) of 85 percent. of M. Pasteur's patients who have been bitten by dogs actually suffering from rabies; while the enormous majority of M. Pasteur's patients who have merely been bitten by healthy animals never were in any danger at all, or, at all events, only in such danger as would be occasioned by a simple wound. In my opinion, Sir, there ought to have been no tolerance, however brief, no acquiescence, however sombre, on the part of our scientific men with such a piece of manifest folly from the first ; but that some of them should even now endeavour to extend the system after its demonstrated failure and 171 deaths (they are evidently increasing daily), is one of those profound mysteries which, in the words of a once-famous metaphysical inquirer, "no fellow can understand."—I am, Sir, &c., CHAS. BELL TAYLOR, M.D.
P.S.—In reply to Mr. Jessop, allow me to quote a parallel case. Three years ago, one of my grooms was bitten severely in the naked hand by a dog that died rabid six days after inflicting the wound. I treated the man myself ; he did not go to Pasteur ; and he is quite well to-day. It is fortunate that Mr. Jessop's patient escaped the double risk of the bite and the inoculation.
[It is time for this correspondence to end.—ED. Spectator.]
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