ix months by muzzling all the
dogs. But muzzling the dogs in a village here or in a town there is
really only temporizing with the trouble.

Hydrophobia in man requires usually from two to six weeks to develop, so
that there is a long period in which to utilize preventive measures, and
it is on this account that children may be sent, as happens frequently,
to New York City or to Paris to be treated by what is known as "Pasteur
treatment." This treatment involves the inoculation of the rabies virus
which has first been passed through a series of rabbits, in the course
of which the virus has become exceedingly strong. The treatment of the
human being consists in successive inoculations with virus of various
strengths, beginning with the weakest and ending with the most powerful
rabbit virus. After this has been done, the effect of the bite of the
mad dog has been neutralized, so that in most cases the disease has been
robbed of its power. Of the cases treated at the Pasteur Institute in
1897, numbering 1521, there were six deaths, and these six were among
those whose arrival at the Institute was so late that the treatment
could not be begun in time.

_Tetanus._

The fourth disease for which an antidote in the form of antitoxin has
been developed is tetanus, commonly known as lockjaw. This is a
bacterial disease caused by a specific germ, the peculiarity of which,
in its progress, is a long-continued spasm of certain muscles of the
body. The germs are commonly found in dirt, garden soil being always
full of them, and whenever the skin is broken by any object, such as a
rusty nail or a knife not clean, lockjaw may be the result. Rather
curiously, it is particularly likely to develop after gunpowder wounds,
and the number of cases of tetanus after the Fourth of July is notable.
This special prevalence of the disease is so well recognized that health
officers usually lay in a large stock of antitoxin about the first of
July, awaiting the inevitable demand for it.

The disease is most commonly contracted from wounds which occur in the
hands or the feet, although it may be the result of wounds in other
parts of the body. Very often the wound may be so insignificant as to
escape the attention, as a pin prick, and yet be followed by an attack
of tetanus. Formerly, the universal treatment for injuries from which
tetanus was feared was to firmly cut out all portions of the flesh and
skin which might have been infected. Sometime