Finally, what was the risk from the bite of a rabid animal, in the days before 1885? It is a matter of guess-work. One writer, and one only, guessed it at 5 per cent.; another guessed it at 55, and a third came to the safe conclusion that it was "somewhere between these limits." Leblanc, who is probably the best guide, put it at 16; and Pasteur himself put it between 15 and 20. But suppose it were only 10; that, before Pasteur, out of every 100 men bitten by rabid animals, 90 would escape and only 10 would die of hydrophobia; then take this fact, that in one year, at one Institute alone, there were 142 patients in class A, bitten by animals that were proved, by the unanswerable test of inoculation, to have been rabid; and 1 death. And every year the same thing; and in all the twelve years together, 2872 such cases (A) and 20 deaths—a mortality not of 10 per cent., but of less than 1 per cent.
1. Athens
The Annales de l'Institut Pasteur, June 1898, contain Dr. Pampoukis' report of three years' work at the Hellenic Institute, from August 1894 to December 1897. During this period 797 cases were treated—590 male and 207 female. The animals that bit them were—dogs, 732; cats, 34; wolf, 1; other animals, 13; and the 17 other patients had been exposed to infection from the saliva of hydrophobic patients. Of the 797 cases, 245 were of class A, 112 B, and 440 C.
"Among the 797 persons treated, there are 2 deaths, one in class B and the other in class C. Thus the mortality has been 0.25 per cent. Besides these 2 who died of rabies there are 5 more, in whom the first signs of rabies showed themselves in less than fifteen days after the last inoculation.
"Finally, beside these 797 cases, there is 1 other case, bitten by a wolf, in which the treatment failed. If we reckon this last case in the statistics of mortality, we have 3 deaths in 798 cases = 0.37 per cent.
"Beside these 798 cases treated at the Institute, there have been others that have not undergone the antirabic treatment, having trusted the assurances of those who are called in Greece empirics. Among these non-treated cases there are 40 who have died of rabies."
2. Palermo
The Annales for April 1896 give the report by Dr. de Blasi and Dr. Russo-Travali of the work of the Municipal Institute at Palermo during 8-1/2 years, from March 1887 to December 1895. The number of cases was 2221; in 1240 (class A), the animals were proved to have been rabid by the result of inoculations; in 981, there was reason to suspect rabies.
"Setting aside 5 patients who died during the course of the treatment, and 5 others who died less than fifteen days after the end of the treatment, we have had to deplore only 9 failures = 0.4 per cent. Even if we count against ourselves the 10 other cases, the mortality is still only 0.85."