“It is now four years since the study of rabies was first commenced in my laboratory, and it has been continued without any other interruption than the enforced cessations which depend on the conditions of the enquiry, conditions which are very unfavourable. The incubation of the disease is always of long duration. There are never sufficient facilities to enable one at a given moment to multiply experiments. In spite of these material hindrances, which however the French Government, in its care for the great scientific interests involved, has done everything in its power to remove, the experiments which we, my fellow-workers and I, have carried out, have nevertheless passed beyond the possibility of numbering them.… If you take any street-dog you please and inoculate rabies in this manner by trephining, using as inoculating-material a portion of the bulb of an animal which has died of the disease, you will invariably convey rabies. The dogs to which the disease has been communicated in this manner are to be counted by hundreds. The method has never failed. The same operation has been performed on hundreds of guinea-pigs and on a yet greater number of rabbits, without a single failure.”—Pasteur’s “Address Delivered at the International Med. Congress at Copenhagen,” Aug. 11th, “Med. Times and Gazette,” Aug. 23rd, 1884.
“In the case where rabies is produced by a bite, or by hypodermic injection, interference with the length of the incubation period must be chiefly ascribed to the great variation which is possible in the amount, always indefinite, of inoculated poison which reaches the central nervous system. If then we wish to determine the intensity of the virus from the length of the incubation period, it is unavoidably necessary to have recourse to inoculation by trephining, which is absolutely certain in its effects, and to employ larger quantities than such as would be necessary simply to produce rabies. When we operate in this way, irregularities in the length of incubation with the same virus will show a tendency to entirely disappear, because we always obtain the maximum of effect which the virus can produce; that maximum corresponding to the minimum duration of incubation. Thus we have at length obtained a method which has enabled us to enquire into the possible existence of varying degrees of virulence, and to mutually compare them. The only secrets in this method, I repeat, are to inoculate by trephining, and to use a quantity of virus, which, although very weak, is more than sufficient to produce rabies in and by itself.”—Ibid.
“As he says substantially in his published report on the subject of canine madness, which he read before a meeting of the Academy of Sciences on May 19, the first experiments he has made give him almost certain hope of success. But, notwithstanding his sanguine views as to the finally favourable results of his investigations, and their unqualified benefit to mankind, he has to ‘multiply the proofs ad infinitum on different species of the brute creation.’ When this shall have been done he will then try the remedy on man.”—Report of a Conversation with M. Pasteur, “Daily Telegraph,” June 6, 1884.
Pavy, Frederick Wm., 36, Grosvenor Street, W. M.D. Lond., 1853; F.R.C.P. Lond., 1860; F.R.S.; Fell. Roy. Med. Chir. Soc.; Mem. Path. Soc.; Corr. Mem. Soc. Anat. Paris, and Med. Chir. Soc. Edin.; Mem. (formerly Vice-Pres.) Paris Med. Soc.; Fell. Med. Soc. Lond.; Phys. and Lect. on Med. (formerly Lect. on Physiol. and on Comp. Anat.) Guy’s Hosp.; Goulston Lect. R.C.P. Lond., 1862 and 1863; Croonian Lect., 1878; Lettsom Lect. on Physiol. Med. Soc., 1859.
Author of “Researches on Sugar Formation in the Liver,” Philos. Trans., 1861; “Immunity of Stomach from being Digested by its own Secretion during Life,” Ibid., 1863; “Remarks on Physiological Effects of Strychnia and the Woorali Poison,” Guy’s Hosp. Reps., 1856; “Lesion of the Nervous System producing Diabetes,” Ibid., 1859; “Lettsom Lectures on certain points connected with Diabetes,” “Lancet,” 1860; etc.
Held a License for Vivisection at Guy’s Hospital Museum Theatre and Lecture Room in 1878-79-80-81-82-83. Certificates for Illustrations of Lectures in 1878-79-80-81-82-83. No experiments returned in 1878.
“Has always illustrated his lectures by experiments (2108); but believes he was the first physiological lecturer in London who did so (2033).… For purposes of experiment uses dogs, rabbits, guinea-pigs, and frogs (2089-90); which are bought in the ordinary way at Leadenhall Market (2101-4); during the season about 20 dogs and 10 rabbits are used (2096).”—Digest Ev. Roy. Com., p. 19.
“Through an opening in the stomach of a dog, Bernard introduced, while digestion was going on, the hind legs of a living frog. The legs were dissolved away, the animal continuing all the while alive.… I have repeated this experiment myself, and obtained a similar result.”… “I performed an experiment, substituting the ear of a rabbit for the legs of a frog.…. At the end of two hours the ear was withdrawn, and several spots of erosion were observed on its surface, but nowhere was it eaten through. On being replaced for another two-and-a-half hours, the tip to the extent of about half or three-quarters of an inch was almost completely removed, a small remnant of it only being left attached by a narrow shred to the remainder of the ear.”—Lancet, No. 2,070.