Mother's Remedies by Thomas Jefferson Ritter (fantasy books to read txt) 📖

and it does not retain its virulence when introduced into any other system of organs. It is essentially a nervous disease and transmitted by the saliva of rabid animals. When inoculated into a wound this virus must come in contact with a broken nerve trunk in order to survive and reproduce itself. If by accident it attacks the end of the broken nerve trunk, it slowly and gradually extends to the higher nerve centers and eventually produces the disease. [242 MOTHERS' REMEDIES]

The incubation, or the time it takes for the disease to develop, varies, but usually is from three to six months. There is a recorded case where the person began to show symptoms of the disease thirteen days after having received a severe wound on the head. The incubation period is seldom longer than six months. The symptoms of the disease in the human being vary within narrow limits. There are three classic symptoms usually encountered, and these are fear, apprehension or excitement, together with deglutitory (swallowing) spasms, terminating in general paralysis. The patient remains conscious of his agony to the end, but the period of illness is of short duration, lasting from one to three days.

The bites of rabid dogs cause ninety per cent of the cases in man and animals. The cat is the next important factor in spreading the disease and about six per cent of the cases are caused by this animal. For other cases four per cent come from bites of horses, wolves, foxes, etc. The wolf in Russia, or other animals like it, may be the chief cause there; but dogs cause ninety per cent, taking all the cases found. Man, dog, cat, horse, cattle, sheep, goat, hog, deer, etc., are subject to the disease either naturally or experimentally. The disease is confined commonly to dogs, because the dog naturally attacks animals of his own species and thus keeps the disease limited mainly to his own kind. Naturally the dog follows this rule, but on the other hand, in the latter stages of the disease he usually goes to the other extreme and even attacks his own master, etc. The dogs that are the most dangerous and do the greatest damage are of the vicious breeds.

The rabbit or guinea pig is used for demonstration in the laboratory. Guinea pigs respond to the virus more rapidly than do other animals and therefore they are especially useful in diagnostic work. Rabbits, however, on account of the convenient size and ease with which they are operated upon, are usually the choice in the production of material used in treating patients.

The director of one Pasteur Institute says, "We have two classes of patients to deal with in the Pasteur institute. The larger class, of course, are those inoculated by the bite of rabid animals, but we also have a few who are infected by the rabid saliva accidentally coming in contact with wounds already produced. In these accidental eases the disease is almost as likely to result as in those to whom the virus is directly communicated by the bite." The wounds considered most dangerous are the recent fresh wounds. The possibility of infection decreases with the formation of the new connective tissue which protects the ends of the broken nerve fibres. One must remember, however, that wounds over joints, especially on the hands, are likely to remain open for some time. A dog ill of this disease can give the disease to man through licking a wound. Such a case has been recorded. This dog licked the child's hands before it was known to be mad. The child died from the disease. As stated before ninety per cent of the cases are inoculated by the bites of rabid animals.

[INFECTIOUS DISEASES 243]

The wounds are considered according to their severity and location. Lacerating, tearing wounds upon uncovered surfaces, especially the head, are the most dangerous. This is due to the fact of the closeness of the brain and the large amount of infection in such a wound, and for this reason treatment should be immediately given. But smaller wounds should also be treated for the smallness of the wound furnishes no sure criterion as to the future outcome of the disease. All possible infections should be regarded as dangerous when considering the advisability of taking the Pasteur Treatment. The small wound has usually a longer period of incubation, because of the small amount of infection, still it may cause a fatal termination. A dog never develops rabies from a lack of water or from being confined or overheated during the summer months. A spontaneous case of rabies has never been known. It must be transmitted from animal to animal and the history of the case will point to a previous infection by a diseased animal.

Where rigid quarantine rules exist the disease does not occur. In Australia they quarantine every dog, that comes to that country, for six months, and in consequence they have never had a case of rabies. In Russia they have had many cases. In Constantinople the disease frequently "runs riot." France has lost as many as 2,500 dogs in one year. Before the Pasteur Treatment was instituted (in 1885) there was an average of sixty deaths in human beings in the Paris hospitals.

Belgium and Austria average one thousand dogs annually. There was a yearly average in Germany of four hundred dogs, dying of rabies, until the law requiring the muzzling of dogs was strictly enforced and since that time the disease is practically unknown. We do not have strict quarantine laws against dogs, and the result is death from hydrophobia in many states annually. It was formerly believed that rabies was a hot weather disease. The number of cases during the winter months of late years has disproved that belief, for the records of the institute for treatment of hydrophobia at Ann Arbor have shown a decrease of cases during the summer months. This was before 1908. This shows that rabies is not a hot weather disease.

[244 MOTHERS' REMEDIES ]

Ordinarily cases of rabies occur here and there (sporadic), but if the conditions are favorable epidemics break out. One dog may bite several dogs and these dogs bite others and thus spread the disease to many. Not every animal bitten by a mad dog develops the disease. The disease does not always follow the bite. Only about forty per cent of all animals bitten by a mad dog contract the disease. This is given by a noted authority. Statistics also show that in man the disease develops in only about twenty per cent of the cases in those who have been bitten by rabid dogs. But in dealing with those who have been bitten such measures should be taken as would be if they were certain of developing the disease; one cannot tell how much poison enters the system in such cases and preventive procedures should be taken. There are reasons why everyone who is bitten does not contract the disease.

The location and character of the bite must be considered. Bites on the head, neck and hands have been recognized as more dangerous, from early times, and such bites produce fatal results quicker than do bites on other parts of the body, and the reason is largely due to the fact that the other parts of the body are more or less protected by the clothing, and this clothing prevents the entrance of so much poison into the system. Bites on the head give a high mortality rate and are rapidly fatal. The close proximity to the brain is one reason.

The part the clothing plays in protection is clearly shown by the following quotation from an eminent authority: "In India where the natives dress very scantily, the mortality was exceedingly high up to a few years ago, at which time the British introduced the Pasteur laboratories. The clothing protects the body and it holds back the saliva and can be looked upon as a means of filtering the saliva of the rabid animal, most of the saliva is held back as the teeth pierce the clothing, so that upon entering the flesh the teeth are practically dry, and only a portion of the virus is introduced. Upon entering the wound this small amount of virus is further diluted by the tissue juices to the non-infectious point. We know from actual experimental work in the laboratory that the higher dilution will not kill."

If a portion of the brain of an animal dead from street virus is taken and made up in a dilution of one to five hundred, and this is injected, we find that it does not produce death. But a dilution of one to three hundred will invariably kill. This is practically what very often happens when one is bitten through the clothing. The saliva may be filtered and held back so that a small amount is introduced; perhaps a dilution of one to five hundred of the virus may get into the wound, but this is usually not enough to cause the disease. There is no possible way of estimating the amount of the inoculation. In such cases one's chances of never contracting the disease are only decreased; that is all we can say.

The treating of individuals, bitten by rabid animals, in the Pasteur Institutes, is simply the practical application of results obtained by Pasteur from his original work on rabies virus. Pasteur was a French chemist living in Paris, and he began his search for the cause and cure of rabies in 1880. He hoped to find a sure method of preventing the development of the dread disease, even if he could not find a cure for it after it had developed. While he was pursuing this research Pasteur had access to the cases of rabies in the Paris hospitals, and these numbered sixty each year. He had practically an unlimited supply, for France could furnish him with twenty-five hundred more mad dogs, and a large number of other animals each year.

[INFECTIOUS DISEASES 245]

Pasteur devoted the remainder of his life to the study of this subject. He collected some saliva from the mouth of a child, on December 11, 1880, who had died at the Hospital Trousseau four hours before. This saliva he diluted with distilled water, and this mixture he injected into rabbits, and they all died, and the saliva taken from these rabbits when injected into other rabbits caused their death with rabies. He found also that saliva from rabid dogs almost always caused the disease. The incubation period varied within wide limits, and very often the animals lived. He then used the blood of rabid dogs for inoculation, but these blood inoculations always failed to produce the disease. Pasteur was convinced after careful study of rabid animals during the many months necessary to complete his experiments, that rabies was a disease of the nervous system, and that the poison (virus) was transmitted from the wound to the brain by the way of the nerve trunks. Then to prove his theory Pasteur removed a portion of the brain of a dog that had died of rabies. A part of this was rubbed up in sterile water and used to inoculate other animals; and subcutaneous inoculations with this material almost always produced death.

After this Pasteur tried a new method and injected directly into the nervous system, either into the nerve trunk or directly into the brain, after trephining, and all such injections produced rabies in the injected animal and death. He also found that rabbits inoculated in the brain always died in the same length of time. When he injected into the nerve trunk the inoculation period was longer, depending upon the distance from the brain. Two problems now remained for Pasteur to solve, and these were, how could he obtain the definite virulence and how could he reduce the virulence regularly and gradually, so that it could be used by inoculation safely as a vaccine to produce immunity to rabies in healthy animals, and also to prevent the development of rabies in animals bitten by rabid animals. He first tried successive inoculations. These inoculations were made, after trephining, directly to the brain, and he used a portion of the brain as a virus each time. He inoculated rabbit number one with a portion of brain taken from a rabid dog, and this rabbit died on the fifteenth day. He then inoculated rabbit number two with a portion of the brain of rabbit number one; from the brain of rabbit number two the virus was supplied for inoculating rabbit number three, and thus the brain of each inoculated rabbit was taken, after its death, for material to inoculate the next rabbit in the series. This experimentation showed him that each rabbit in the series died a little sooner, showing that the virus was becoming more