"So you have just seen the inoculation? Do I believe it a sure cure?" The doctor lays down his letters as he repeats the latter question in an astonished tone. "Of course I do. There is nothing surer in medical science. Look at these figures." He rises and draws out from the midst of a pile of papers a big black _serviette_, fumbles for a moment among the documents it contains, and pulls out the latest report made by the Institute on the results of vaccination for hydrophobia, that for 1891. "Now listen to these figures. In 1886 the Pasteur made its first report: 2,671 persons were vaccinated that year against hydrophobia; 25 of them died--.94 of one per cent. In 1887, 1,770 persons were treated; 13 died--.73 of one per cent. In 1888, 1,622 were treated; 9 died--.55 of one per cent. In 1889, 1,830 were treated; 7 died--.38 of one per cent. In 1890, 1,540 were treated; 5 died--.32 of one per cent. In 1891, 1,559 were treated; 3 died--.19 of one per cent. You notice each year the per cent. of deaths has been lower. In the six years the treatment has been reported, we average just about one-half of one per cent of loss. Tell me where you find a treatment surer?" "But you have not found the microbe?" "Humph! that does not prevent the method working. It is aggravating not to have found him. It prevents, possibly, the simplification of the inoculation process. Nevertheless it works. So does vaccination for small-pox. We do not know the microbe of small-pox. There is much we do not know yet. Remember, too, that it was only in 1880 that M. Pasteur made up his mind to begin an exhaustive study of hydrophobia, and that all he foresaw at first was the possibility of vaccinating dogs against rabies, and that it was only in 1885 that the first person, little Joseph Meister, was inoculated, after a council of physicians had decided that his death was certain, and that his life was saved." PORTRAITS OF M. PASTEUR. [Illustration: BY LAFON.] [Illustration: BUST BY P. DUBOIS.] [Illustration: BY BONNAT.] [Illustration: BY A. EDELFALT.] The newness of the Pasteur doctrines and treatment is, indeed, one of the most striking things about the Institute. One rubs his eyes to remember that, thirteen years ago, very few people admitted the _role_ of bacteria in the world, and that those who did admit their existence were very much at sea about what to do with them. The doctrine of microbe, the theory that ferments and virus are living beings, that a vaccine is an attenuated virus, that medicine is based on the artificial attenuation of virus--all this is now so widely received, is so thoroughly a part of popular belief, that one is bewildered in remembering that twelve years ago the general theory of disease was that it is "in us, from us, by us." Especially is all this astonishing, standing in the Pasteur Institute, the crystallization of the microbe doctrine. "Yes," continued Doctor Roux, "we have conquered hydrophobia; nothing is more certain."