Now let me put before you the answer to the question: Is this treatment a real cure? For this has been doubted by persons, some of whom will, I fear, still doubt, or profess to doubt, and still abuse Pasteur whatever is said or done! From all that can be learned about the matter, it appears pretty certain that about from fifteen to twenty persons out of every hundred bitten by mad dogs or cats, and not treated by Pasteur's method, develop the disease, for I need scarcely add that all other methods of treatment have proved fallacious; but bites on the face are much more dangerous, the proportion of fatal cases reaching 80 per cent. Now of two thousand one hundred and sixty-four persons treated in the Pasteur Institute, from November 1885, to January 1887, only thirty-two died, showing a mortality of 1.4 per cent. instead of 15 to 20, and amongst these upwards of two thousand persons, two hundred and fourteen had been bitten on the face, a class of wounds in which, as I have said, when untreated, the mortality is very high; so that the reduction in the death-rate seems more remarkable, especially when we learn that in all these cases the animal inflicting the wound had been proved to be rabid. The same thing occurs even in a more marked degree in 1887 and 1888. In 1887, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-eight cases were treated with a mortality of 1.3 per cent., while last year one thousand six hundred and twenty-six cases were treated, with a mortality of 1.16 per cent.*

Statistics of the anti-rabic treatment in other countries show similar results, proving beyond a doubt that the death-rate from hydrophobia is greatly reduced. Indeed, it may truly be said that in no case of dangerous disease, treated either by medicine or surgery, is a cure so probable. Moreover, in spite of assertions to the contrary, no proof can be given that in any single case did death arise from the treatment itself. And as showing the safety of the inoculation, I may add that all Pasteur's assistants and laboratory workers have undergone the treatment, and no case of hydrophobia has occurred amongst them.

You are no doubt aware that Pasteur's anti-rabic treatment has been strongly opposed by certain persons, some of whom have not scrupled to descend to personal abuse of a virulent character of those who in any way encouraged or supported Pasteur's views, and all of whom persistently deny that anything good has come or can come from investigations of the kind. Such persons we need neither fear nor hate. Their opposition is as powerless to arrest the march of science as was King Canute's order to stop the rising tide. Only let us rest upon the sure basis of exactly ascertained fact, and we may safely defy alike the vaporings of the sentimentalist, and the wrath of the opponent of scientific progress. But opposition of a much fairer character has likewise to be met, and it has with propriety been asked: How comes it that Pasteur is not uniformly successful? Why (if what you tell us is true) do any deaths at all follow the anti-rabic treatment?

*For further details, see Dr.-Ruffer, Brit. Med. Journ., Sept. 21, 1889.

The answer is not far to seek. In the first place, just as it is not every vaccination which protects against small-pox, so Pasteur's vaccination against rabies occasionally fails. Then again, Pasteur's treatment is really a race between a strong and an attenuated virus. In cases in which the bite occurs near a nerve-center, the fatal malady may outstrip the treatment in this race between life and death. If the weakened virus can act in time, it means life. If the strong virus acts first, prevention comes too late,-it means death. So that the treatment is not doubtful in all cases, but only doubtful in those which are under wellknown unfavorable conditions. This it seems to me is a complete reply to those who ignorantly fancy that, because Pasteur's treatment has not cured every case, it must be unreliable and worthless.

One word more. I have said that Pasteur is still-as he has always been-a chemist. How does this fit in with the fact that his recent researches seem to be entirely of a biological character? This is true. They seem, but they really are not. Let me in a few sentences explain what I mean. You know that yeast produces a peculiar chemical substance-alcohol. How it does so we can not yet explain, but the fact remains. Gradually, through Pasteur's researches, we are coming to understand that this is not an isolated case, but that the growth of every micro-organism is productive of some special chemical substance, and that the true pathogenic virus--or the poison causing the diseaseis not the microbe itself, but the chemical compound which its growth creates. Here once more "to the solid ground of nature trusts the man that builds for aye," and it is only by experiment that these things can be learnt.

Let me illustrate this by the most recent and perhaps the most striking example we know of. The disease of diphtheria is accompanied by a peculiar microbe, which however only grows outside, as it were, of the body, but death often takes place with frightful rapidity. This takes place not by any action of the microbe itself, but by simple poisoning due to the products of the growing organism, which penetrate into the system, although the microbe does not. This diphtheritic Bacillus can be cultivated, and the chemical poison which it produces can be completely separated by filtration from the microbe itself, just as alcohol can be separated from the yeast granules. If this be done, and one drop of this pellucid liquid given to an animal, that animal dies with all the well-known symptoms of the disease. This, and similar experiments made with the microbes of other diseases, lead to the conclusion that in infectious maladies the cause of death is poisoning by a distinct chemical compound, the microbe being not only the means of spreading the infection, but also the manufacturer of the poison. But more than this, it has lately been proved that a small dose of these soluble chemical poisons confers immunity. If the poison be adminis tered in such a manner as to avoid speedy poisoning, but so as gradually to accustom the animal to its presence, the creature becomes not only

refractory to toxic doses of the poison, but also even to the microbe itself. So that instead of introducing the micro-organism itself into the body, it may now only be necessary to vaccinate with a chemical substance which in large doses brings about the disease, but in small ones confers immunity from it, reminding one of Hahnemann's dictum of "Similia similibus curantur."

Here then we are once more on chemical ground. True, on ground which is full of unexplained wonders, which however depend on laws we are at least in part acquainted with, so that we may in good heart undertake their investigation, and look forward to the time when knowledge will take the place of wonder.

In conclusion, I feel that some sort of apology is needed in thus bringing a rather serious piece of business before you on this occasion. Still I hope for your forgiveness, as my motive has been to explain to you as clearly as I could the life-work of a chemist who has in my opinion conferred benefits as yet untold and perhaps unexampled on mankind, and I may be allowed to close my discourse with the noble words of our hero spoken at the opening of the Pasteur Institute in the presence of the President of the French Republic:

"Two adverse laws seem to me now in contest. One law of blood and death, opening out each day new modes of destruction, forces nations to be always ready for the battle-field. The other a law of peace, of work, of safety, whose only study is to deliver man from the calamities which beset him.

"The one seeks only violent conquests. The other only the relief of humanity. The one places a single life above all victories. The other sacrifices the lives of hundreds of thousands to the ambition of a single individual. The law of which we are the instruments, strives even through the carnage to cure the bloody wounds caused by this law of war. Treatment by our antiseptic methods may preserve thousands of soldiers.

"Which of these two laws will prevail over the other? God only knows. But of this we may be sure, that science in obeying this law of humanity will always labor to enlarge the frontiers of life."

MEMOIR OF HEINRICH LEBERECHT FLEISCHER.*

BY PROF. A. MÜLLER, Ph. D.
Translated by Miss HENRIETIA SZOLD.

Were it desirable to single out the rarest and most admirable among the many fine qualities of the great and good scholar to whose memory these lines are devoted, I should not hesitate to name the perfect selfdenial which at all times prompted him to place his unparallelled attainments at the disposal of others. Among German orientalists (if Assyrio. logists be excepted), few will be found who have not profited by his unselfishness; and abroad likewise there are many who are similarly indebted. We all knew where to seek when our meager stores were on the point of giving out, and we stood in need of the gifts with which his treasure-houses were abundantly filled. In dispensing these to great and small, he was untiring, generous, and impartial as God's sun which shines upon the just and the unjust alike. More than a year has passed since his hand has grown numb and his eye dim, but where do they linger who should have hastened to his grave, and wreathed with tributes of gratitude the hillock which nature, slow though her processes are, has twice decked with fresh verdure? I blame, I accuse no one. Many a shrinking soul hides its gratitude in reverential silence rather than parade fine and tender feelings in the market-place. Doubtless there are others who reluctantly find themselves forced by the cares of existence, by daily new burthensome tasks, to deny themselves the fulfillment of a warmly cherished desire. And most probably there are still others, here and there, who, like the writer of these words, are even now, after unavoidable delay, on the point of paying the long-planned tribute of piety. Nevertheless it remains a sad fact that, with the exception of the somewhat business-like though not unsympathetic announcements of the French Institute and of the Bavarian Academy, the brief remarks, accompanying an excellent portrait of Fleischer in the Leipzig Illustrirte Zeitung, an article in the New York Times, and a barren notice in the London Athenæum, only two attempts have up to this time been made to give adequate and becoming treatment to the work of this distinguished scholar: Thorbecke's sketch in the Journal of the German

* From Bezzenberger's Beiträge zur Kunde der indogermanischen Sprachen, Göttingen, 1889, vol. xv, pp. 319-337.

Oriental Society, and the more extended memorial address by Goldziher before the Hungarian Academy. Indeed it will ever be humiliating to German orientalists, that although more than a year has elapsed since Fleischer's death, the only searching analysis published of his great activity as a scholar and a teacher (and such Goldziher's* essay obviously is), has been written by an Hungarian in his native language, with which no one of us is conversant.

In fact, the number is not very great of those who may without presumption undertake an exhaustive treatment of the life of so distinguished a scholar. I am far from counting myself among that number, but I believe I have learned enough to enable me to appreciate to a certain extent the great ability of him who acquired such vast learning by means of his own exertions; and I trust I have sufficient judgment to designate at least approximately the rank and position due my deceased teacher in the history of our science. Precisely here I can not permit the motive of modesty to hinder me from attempting this task, for the reader who is interested in the science of IndoEuropean languages may justly wish to gain an idea of the general attitude of a scholar whose investigations border upon his own sphere. That my task also involves the duty of pointing ont the natural limitations of his activity shall not hinder me from carrying out my intention. Next to unselfishness, Fleischer's most prominent trait as a scholar was his love of truth. He himself would be the first to censure me if I were to sketch his personality in white on a white back-ground, according to the latest fashion among painters. Admiration without criticism is valueless. If, feeling the former, I venture to use the latter, no one may charge me with presumptuousness. He is a poor master who trains disciples bereft of the critical faculty; a poor disciple he who leans unquestioningly upon the authority of even a deeply-revered master. I must however refrain from giving a detailed description of the purely human side of his being and life, incomplete though his picture will thus remain. I consider it improper to forestall a full presentation by one more qualified for this task, who can base his assertions upon intimate acquaintance with all the incidents and relations of his private life. I shall confine myself to outlines, the data for which I owe to the kindness of Prof. Dr. Curt Fleischer, of Meissen. They thus may claim reliability on those points in which they disagree with statements published elsewhere.

Heinrich Leberecht Fleischer was born at Schandau on February 21, 1801. His father, Johann Gottfried Fleischer, an officer in the customservice, died at the age of eighty-nine, on August 24, 1860, at Pirna, enjoying at that time a pension as inspector of customs. His mother, whom he lost as early as August 10, 1825, was the daughter of the

Emlékbeszéd Fleischer Leberecht Henrik a M. Tud. Akadémia kültagja felett. Goldziher Ignácz (a Magy. Tud. Ak. elhúnyt tagjai fölött tarttot emlékbeszédek. Vköt. 4. szám). Budapest, M. T. Ak., 1889, 44 p., 8.