HYDROPHOBIA-ITS PREVALENCE AND

PREVENTION

Henry R. Slack, Ph.M., M.D., LaGrange, Ga.

It is not the object of this paper to discuss the brilliant work of Pasteur in discovering the preventive treatment of rabies by animal experimentation nor the etiology and pathology of this disease, for you are all familiar with the literature on this subject. It is too extensive to attempt to condense into a paper of this length. I merely wish to call your atention to the rapid increase of this disease and point out the method for its prevention.

Ten years ago, in Atlanta, I presented a paper to this Association entitled, "Hydrophobia, and the necessity for a Pasteur Institute in Georgia." This paper was fully discussed and the motion to appoint a committee with power to act prevailed. The work of this committee led to the establishment of the Georgia Pasteur Institute in 1900.

It was contended by quite a number of well-informed physicians that there was not enough rabies in Georgia and neighboring states to justify the establishment of a Pasteur Institute, but Dr. Jas. N. Brawner took hold of it with energy and determined to make it a success.

We treated during the first year only 22 cases, the second 43, the third year 85, fourth year 87, fifth year 108, sixth year 155, seventh year 206, eighth year 276, and the ninth year 68. Meantime the legislature, on motion of Dr. L. G. Hardman, appropriated money for the State Board of Health to establish a Pasteur department under the efficient management of Drs. H. F. Harris and Edgar Paullin, which was opened in June 1908, and from then until December 31st, they treated 216, in 1909

they treated 418, and up to April 15th of this year 149 cases. Thus it will be seen that there were 1,830 persons, who have received Pasteur treatment in the past nine years in Georgia, and this despite the fact that nearly all the Southern States have established Pasteur laboratories for the free treatment of their citizens.

Of the 1,830 persons treated only 6 developed the disease after completion of the immunity period, which is less than 1-3 of 1 per cent., while 25 per cent of those who failed to take the treatment died. This shows a saving of over 400 lives by Pasteur treatment in Georgia alone in the last ten years.

When you consider the fact that for four years (from 1900 to 1904) we treated 237 patients and that 44 of them came from west of the Mississippi River, 32 from Alabama, 24 from South Carolina, 118, less than half, from Georgia, and that 489 were treated in Georgia in 1908 and 486 in 1909, after these other states had established Pasteur laboratories, the increase in rabies is appalling. The average for the first four years of this decade was 59.5 while for the last two years it is 487.5, or an increase of over 837% in less than ten years. This certainly is enough to make us pause and think what we must do to prevent the rapid spread of this most awful of all diseases.

We are all more or less familiar with Death when he comes in "Consumption's ghastly form. The earthquake shock and ocean storm," but in hydrophobia he is even more terrible. Now all this anxiety, suffering and death can be prevented by a very simple method.

Muzzle all dogs, and establish a six months quarantine. This is not theory, but a fact that has been demonstrated in England, Denmark, Sweeden and Norway. In the two latter countries there has not been a case of rabies in over fifty years. England's experience with the muzzling law demonstrates its efficiency most clearly. In 1889 there were 312 dogs that died with rabies and 30 human

beings. The muzzling law was passed and rigidly enforced so that in 1892 (three years) only 38 dogs and 6 people died with rabies. The "dog lovers" at this time appealed to the authorities to remove the "cruel muzzle" and they consented, with the result that during the next five years 1,602 dogs and 51 people died of the most agonizing disease known to medicine. Despite this awful lesson these same "humanitarians" came again in 1899 with another petition signed by 50,000 of them, begging to be relieved of the annoying muzzle, but the authorities had learned a lesson and remained obdurate, with the result that in 1905 no case of rabies occurred in England and there has been none since in man or beast.

What has been accomplished in England, Sweeden, Denmark and Norway can be done in the United States, and we must see to it that Georgia takes the lead in this matter and that our next legislature passes a muzzling law.

The dog tax is a failure, a fallacy and a fraud as at present enforced.

I hope the Association will instruct the Legislative Committee to work for this law, and let us stamp out Hydrophobia from the Empire State of the South.

DISCUSSION

Dr. Claude A. Smith, Atlanta: I should like to refer to a law that was introduced into the legislatude two years ago. This was introduced by the legislative committee of our Association and was brought before the notice of this Association at our last meeting, last summer. The law did not reach a hearing because of the urgency of other business. It will probably come up before the next meeting.

ETHYLIC AND EMYLIC ALCOHOL DIFFEREN

TIATED.

B. W. Hall, M.D., Bowman, Ga.

Amylic alcohol commonly known as fusel oil is a residue of distillation and may be removed in the process of distillation by placing properly layers of charcoal, sand, oyster shells or a few drops of olive oil.

Amylic alcohol is a product of Corn and Potato Whiskey and a hydrated oxide of Amyl. After all the Ethylic alcohol is exhausted in the distillation of corn or potatoes and the distillation be continued a little further a milky liquid will be obtained which upon standing will be covered with a stratum of this peculiar oil. Subject this milky liquid to distillation it will at first boil at a comparatively low temperature and yield water and a little of the oil, but after a time the boiling point will rise to 132 C. (269 F) when the oil will come over pure. By changing the receiver when the oil begins to distill free from water the oil is collected separate.

Amylic alcohol is an oily, colorless liquid of strong offensive odor and acrid burning taste Sp. Gr. 81. boils at 132 C (269 F..) Slightly soluble in water but combines with alcohol ether and essential oils in all proportions. It dissolves in iodine, sulphur and phosphorus and is a good solvent for fats, resins and camphor. When heated with phosphorus or other oxidizing agents it looses one or more atoms of hydrogen and gains one atom of oxygen and becomes C 5, H 10, 0 2, or amylic acid, which is identical with valerinic acid, the acid formed in Valerian. The free amylic (C. 5, H) has been isolated.

The hydride of amylic C 5 H 11 H is an energetic anaesthetic discovered by Dr. Simpson of Edenburgh.

Amylic alcohol of Crude Oil has been analyzed to contain propylic, butylic and amylic alchohol. Amylie alcohol is used in the fine arts and as a solvent of Cinchona Alkaloids.

Methyl alcohol C H 4,0 or wood alcohol is also used in the arts.

Ethylic alcohol is used in small doses as a cardiac stimulant in debilitating diseases such as diphtheria. typhoid fever, pneumonia, general collapse, Surgical shock, etc. It is also used locally as antiseptic and astringent and for the preservation of anatomic and biologic specimens and a preservative of Tr. and Fl. Ex. In large doses alcohol is a narcotic poison producing intoxication with muscular incoordination, paralysis, delirium and coma.

Dr. H. S. Williams in McClure's Magazine, shows that the brain, the nerves, the heart and blood vessels, the stomach and intestinal tract, the lymphatic system, the kidneys and the liver may each and all become diseased by the habitual drinking of even small quantities of alcohol. Not only the drinker is subject to these results, but are passed on to his descendants of successive generations.

Alcohol attacks whatever organ or tissue that may be the weakest and most susceptible. Dr. Williams agrees with Scheffer and Schumburg that alcohol does not increase musular power. He suggests that alcohol is not a food in the sense in which fats and carbohydrates are food; it should be defined as an easily oxidizing drug with numerous untoward effects which inevitably appear when certain minimum doses are exceeded.

He classes alcohol with the more or less dangerous stimulants and narcotics such as hashesh, tobacco, etc., rather than with truly sustaining food stuffs. In the place of promoting brain activity alcohol is a disturber