Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 35.djvu/688

664 affected by M. Pasteur's work, which has culminated in his method of treating hydrophobia. I can not conceive that any competently instructed person can consider M. Pasteur's labors in this direction without arriving at the conclusion that, if any man has earned the praise and honor of his fellows, he has. I find it no less difficult to imagine that our wealthy country should be other than ashamed to continue to allow its citizens to profit by the treatment freely given at the institute without contributing to its support. Opposition to the proposals which your lordship sanctions would be equally inconceivable if it arose out of nothing but the facts of the case thus presented. But the opposition which, as I see from the English papers, is threatened, has really for the most part nothing on earth to do either with M. Pasteur's merits or with the efficacy of his method of treating hydrophobia. It proceeds partly from the fanatics of laissez faire, who think it better to rot and die than to be kept whole and lively by state interference, partly from the blind opponents of properly conducted physiological experimentation, who prefer that men should suffer rather than rabbits or dogs, and partly from those who for other but not less powerful motives hate everything which contributes to prove the value of strictly scientific methods of inquiry in all those questions which affect the welfare of society. I sincerely trust that the good sense of the meeting over which your lordship will preside will preserve it from being influenced by these unworthy antagonisms, and that the just and benevolent enterprise you have undertaken may have a happy issue.

The following letter from M. Pasteur, dated Paris, the 27th ult., was read by Sir H. Roscoe:

": I am obliged by your sending me a copy of the letter of invitation issued by the Lord Mayor for the meeting on July 1st. Its perusal has given me great pleasure. The questions relating to the prophylactic treatment for hydrophobia in persons who have been bitten and the steps which ought to be taken to stamp out the disease are discussed in a manner both exact and judicious. Seeing that hydrophobia has existed in England for a long time, and that medical science has failed to ward off the occurrence even of the premonitory symptoms, it is clear that the prophylactic method of treating this malady which I have discovered ought to be adopted in the case of every person bitten by a rabid animal. The treatment required by this method is painless during the whole of its course and not disagreeable. In the early days of the application of this method.