ern window falls on his face. On his left is a table with ten glasses, containing a substance which looks like starch, but is peptonized gelatine, having in it nine different degrees of tamed virus, and the rapid poison in its pris tine strength. No. 1 is the weakest, No. 10 the most potent. The doctor is middle-aged, slender, bald, sandy haired, self-possessed, pale, has a Mephistophelian profile, and never by any chance says a word to anybody. His air is one of utter indifference. He is merely Pasteur's authorized medical instrument. But

under his indifferent manner keen watchful.

ness peeps out. His hands are in black kid

gloves, which on sitting down he carefully examines to see there are no holes. The doctor

operates on all-the scrofulous, consumptive, scabby, the healthy, the young, the old, the maiden, the child, the gallant soldier, etc., etc., with the same hypodermic syringe. He does not wash it between the inoculations, or the categories of inoculations. Each patient, on coming up to him, bares his or her abdo

men.

The ladies have ingenious contrivances to avoid indelicate exhibitions. Nevertheless, some of them redden like peonies, and others all but cry. Grancher pays no heed to their blushing, nor to their welling-over eyes, and operates as if they were anatomy-room subjects. He takes a bit of the abdominal flesh between a finger and thumb, drives slantingly down under the skin the needle, and injects. This syringe is an elegant little instrument like a case pencil. There are times when his eye, it seems to those who watch him, expresses scoffing scepticism. It seems to say Tus d'imbeciles. He is not in Pasteur's secret. This contemptuous glance may perhaps be explained by the fact that the crowd emits a worse odor than a collection of old and freshly worn shoes. French and Belgian peasants are clean and neat, but lower order Spanish, Portuguese, and Russians are dirty to a loathsome degree. The Kabyles have a passion for clean linen and cold water, and never fail to wash

their feet under the tap of the École Normale. This lively Fortnightly Review writer contends, it will be noticed, that "Dr. Grancher is not in M. Pasteur's secret." I do not in the least understand what this means. Dr. Grancher seems to me an excellent representative of a large class of medical practitioners; he is employed whether gratuitously or not I do not know -to do something, in this particular case to carry out subcutaneous injections of virus, and that something he does to the best of his ability; that seems his role.

At the time of my visit at least 4,000 people had gone to Paris from all parts of Europe and America; but the people are chiefly French; foreigners bear but a small ratio to the whole.

I found many people engaged like my self in making inquiries; with some of these I entered into conversation, and

their opinions conflicted very much one with another. For instance, I noticed a very large, gentlemanly man, about sixty evidently a person of ability and mark. With some hesitation I addressed him, and found him most courteous. He was a Russian physician from Moscow. He had once only seen a case of hydrophobia, and when I commented on the incredible number of rabid dogs that seemed without rhyme or reason to be infesting Europe like one of the plagues of Egypt, he smiled. He appeared to accept the sincerity and good faith of Pasteur as above question, and spoke warmly of his ability as a chemist and of his discoveries in crystallization; but, as for physiology, he again smiled. On asking the Russian his opinion as to whether there was any value in Pasteur's theories and treatment, he "Time will show; replied oracularly: time has destroyed many great reputations and exposed many pretensions. As for truth, where can we find perfect truth, but with One above, the Source and Fountain of all truth?" This was very true, though it gave me little assistance.

Too much has undoubtedly been made of Pasteur's not being a medical man, and not having studied physiology. I cannot see why highly educated inen are necessarily incompetent to judge, and often correctly and impartially, of the merits of men and things outside their daily work. The question is not-Is Pasteur a doctor and a physiologist? But Has he the intellectual qualifications for mastering the subject he has taken in hand? Can he sift and weigh evidence? Is he unprejudiced? Is his first and last aim the love of truth and the good of mankind? These questions I leave others to answer, though there will hardly be two opinions as to his ability. Most medical men are not original investigators, and few, however well qualified as regards professional education and the possession of diplomas, are competent to discover or report upon new truths, and Pasteur might easily be more competent in this respect than most successful and skilful practitioners.

Pasteur's keenness of observation and retentiveness of memory did not impress me as remarkable. The last time I saw him before leaving Paris, when, wishing him good-by, he looked at me absently and said : You, you have not then been bitten ?" 'Many times," I replied,

66

"but not of late, nor by a mad dog." Still even of this I will not make much. Pasteur must be a man of remarkable acumen and power, although he may not favorably impress all strangers. At the same time I have known many eminent men, whose writings and achievements showed them to be geniuses, who did not convey even to intimate friends the impression of conspicuous ability.

On my second morning in the rooms matters went on much the same. I noticed a dark man of fifty, whom I crossexamined. He was a physician from Cairo, sent to Paris to investigate the matter. He was very reticent as to Pasteurism, though he accounted for the large number of patients from their being drawn from a vast area, which did not agree with my own observations and inquiries. The Egyptian physician was clever, lively, and intelligent. Among the patients were two foreign women-one tall, the other short, both singularly handsome. "What are those people?" I inquired. "One," he replied, "is an Arab; the other I don't know. The short woman whom he had called an Arab heard him, and politely begged his pardon, disclaiming any Arab blood. She and her tall companion were Spaniards-from Arragon, I think. "Yes, but of Arab type," the physician retorted. "Don't you know that the Arabs ruled Spain for 700 years?" The woman laughed, but doubted her Arab ancestry, or the Arab rule of Spain, I don't know which.

Among the visitors there was another tall man, with gold-rimmed spectacles. I put him through a long cross-examination; he was a Brazilian physician, investigating the subject preparatory to opening a similar institute at Rio. It was quite refreshing at last to meet with a believer in Pasteur; he was convinced that the treatment was infallible, and the deaths he got over very comfortably. Some were from the severity of the wounds, other people did not come soon enough, and some deaths were from other complaints; that was his explanation.

One morning I heard M. Pasteur speak to a man, evidently a stranger, perhaps a foreigner. He had not brought a medical certificate, and had been previously ordered to get one from his doctor, who lived at some distance. Telegraph at once," said Pasteur peremptorily; we

must have certificates and proofs whenever we can get them.'

There is little to add. Of Pasteur's kindness of heart, or rather of his affection for children, there is no doubt. "He is in ready sympathy with children. The moment a little one sobs or whimpers in go his fingers into his waistcoat fob and out comes a silver coin, which is slipped, with the accompaniment of pats on the back and head, into the young thing's hand. This is done spontaneously, and from pure good nature.

M. Pasteur's own evident faith in what was going on-I mean in the value of the treatment I could not possibly doubt; nor could I question in one sense his humanity; he seemed passionately fond of children, and any little child always attracted his attention. One of the doctors, the large jovial man, was injecting the virus into a little boy and the latter resisted and screamed. The slight disturbance attracted M. Pasteur's notice; he hurried up: "What are you doing?" he exclaimed sharply. "Nothing" replied the doctor; "the little boy saw the instrument and was frightened, that is all." Again, a second child cried, when M. Pasteur once more came up and said,

Ah, my child, it is all over!" Once more, a little girl was rather noisy, when he hurried to the spot and said in a tone of real concern, "Souviens-toi, ma petite, que si on t'a fait du mal c'est pour ton bien, mon enfant.' Another child he soothed and comforted, giving it a piece of money. I saw one of the medical men kissing a little child he was going to attend to. I apologize for mentioning these trivial matters, but I am bound to be candid in my statements, and some persons have represented Pasteur and his assistants as monsters of cruelty. But I must remind the reader that professions and practice have not always much in common. The most indefatigable in their attendance at church, and in their observance of religious forms, are unfortunately sometimes those who show least of the true spirit of the Master; the roughest in appearance are sometimes the kindest and gentlest ; and the smoothest spoken have occasionally the hardest hearts. A friend of mine, who would not be considered strictly orthodox, is of all the men whom I know the one who seems best to enter into and to understand the spirit of the Master;

another friend, a most enthusiastic sportsman, who thinks little of human life, is the one whose tender love of animals and birds has most impressed me. So while M. Pasteur and his assistants may be dead to all feeling for animals-at least toward those they are going to vivisect-they may feel deep love for young children, and be ready to help and soothe them. Having always regarded vivisection with undisguised aversion, I felt greater curiosity than common to see a man whose fame as a vivisector is world-wide, but during my conversations with him I heard nothing of those terrible and repeated experiments that have aroused so much horror in many hearts. "Pasteur is happy in his married life, happy in the marriage of his daughter to the M. Valery-Radot who has written such a charming' Life of a Savant by an Ignoramus,' and happy in the company of a grandchild whom Barnet has painted standing beside him, the savant's hand half-hidden among the girl's clustering curls." Because of his experiments on animals he was once reproached with cruelty. "Never," he replied, 66 never in my life have I taken the life of an animal for sport, but when it is question of my experiments, I claim the right to make them; I am deterred by no scruples !''

a

The public interest in the subject declined for a time, when the death of Lord Doneraile of hydrophobia following the bite of a tame fox reopened, as from the rank of the sufferer it could hardly fail to do, the whole question of Pasteurism, and as the case was typical of a large class I will relate it. Lord Doneraile was an elderly nobleman, of rather quiet country habits, and very fond of dogs. He was bitten by a tame fox, and soon after the latter became rabid. Of course Lord Doneraile was a good deal alarmed, and without delay went to Paris, where he and his coachman, who had also been bitten at the same time, underwent that curious treatment with which the name of the illustrious Frenchman will henceforth be inseparably connected. The patients returned home apparently well. Unfortunately, after a time the master became ill and developed hydrophobia, and in a few days passed away, adding another to the long list of failures that have thrown such increasing discredit on Pasteur's treatment of hydrophobia. The man, much younger NEW SERIES.-VOL. LI., No. 4.

33

than his master, keeps well, though, by the way, age has little to do with the development and course of the disease. Lord Doneraile's was the ninety-eighth death after treatment at the hands of Pasteur.

As for the value of the treatment, that seems more doubtful than ever. The in. jection does not appear to me to produce any local or constitutional disturbance, and so cannot, as far as I can understand, neutralize or destroy any virus in the system. "In hydrophobia," said Sir James Paget, in a recent Morton Lecture at the College of Surgeons, "there is a specific virus, inoculable, probably a microbe; it is everywhere diffused, in the person or animal in whom it has been inserted; it is in the saliva, and thus matters may continue during good health, but, at last, it produces definite disease at the appropriate nervous centre." The virus injected in Pasteur's treatment is intended to permeate the system and destroy the hydrophobic germs; whether it does so others must decide, certainly the terrible necrol ogy of M. Pasteur seems to show that something is wrong somewhere.

Wishing to get the most recent scientific opinion on the subject, I wrote to Dr. Thomas Michael Dolan, the very distin. guished editor of the Provincial Medical Journal. Ilis words are strong, and are dated February 11, 1890. "I am satisfied," he writes, "that M. Pasteur has not only not diminished the average deathrate from hydrophobia in any part of the world, but that by his intensive process he has increased it-by introducing a new disease in man-paralytic hydrophobia."

When I noticed that, though the patients were drawn from a large area, most were French, and not a few from Paris or the district, I felt that one might doubt whether the majority of the dogs that had inflicted the bites were rabid. It must not, however, be forgotten that, though hydrophobia is often a nervous complaint

in other words, many of its victims die of terror-it is possible that some of the more nervous people treated by Pasteur have been saved from death. This confidence in the value of the treatment must vanish as numerous cases are published of well-marked hydrophobia following on the treatment, and deaths from dread of hydrophobia will again be as common as ever. "I also heard Pasteur speak of the inestimable good a thorough belief in a cure for