Licence: In copyright
Credit: Pasteur, science and medicine / by F.M. Sandwith. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![As far ])ack as 1880 Pastcnr had devoted some .. attention to hydrophobia. The older members of the ' eommunity may still remember tlie occasional ; appearance of this horrible disease in England, although ^ we have never been the victims of such constant and | serious outbreaks as our neighbours on the Continent. | Our island gives us some immunity, and has now made | it possible, through the determination of Mr. Walter | T^ong, lately President of the Local Government Board, J to stamp it out entirely. This cannot be done in t countries where re-infection may at any moment take j place from the frontiers. There hydrophobia is still an | illness much to be dreaded. It is directly infectious, I that is, the infection can always be traced from a bite I or tear from an infected animal, the poison being J present in the saliva and entering directly into the | blood of the person attacked. This poison may, | however, linger for many weeks or months in some part | of the body before it reaches the nervous centres where > the disease develops, and this accounts for the fact that \ the incubation period varies widely, and is, in some ■ cases, so very long. When the typical hydrophobia | symptoms have developed, however, it is a terrilde ; disease to witness. First come spasms, restlessness, and I' burning thirst which cannot be assuaged because the i O V very sight or sound of water causes in the unfortunate .j, patient strangling spasms in his throat, then follow violence and delirium, and after a day or two the patient dies from exhaustion. Up to 20 years ago we '• were utterly helpless to avert this dreadful suffering; the victim of a bite from a rabid dog saw death in its most horrible shape staring him inevitably in the face. In old days the fear of hydrophobia was so great that cases ai’e known of people with rabies, or even suspected](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22426292_0038.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
