Inoculations by trepanning of such virus will likewise produce no result; but an animal will, notwithstanding, be rendered perfectly proof against the disease. The virulence of the virus becomes, on the contrary, augmented in its passage from rabbit to rabbit. If a dog be inoculated with virus thus augmented in power, a far more intense form of the disease will be manifested than that apparent in ordinary canine madness, and will invariably prove fatal”.
By applying these and other observations, M. Pasture obtained virus of different degrees of virulence, and succeeded, by inoculations of the milder qualities, in preserving animals from the effects of more active and mortal kinds. For example, after several days longer than the shortest incubation term, M. Pasteur extracted virus from the head of a rabbit which had died of the diseases, and inoculated successively two other rabbits.
Each time a dog was inoculated with the virus, which, as had been seen, would increase each time in virulence. The result was that the dog was ultimately rendered capable of bearing a virus of mortal strength, and became absolutely proof against canine virus. M. Pasteur anticipates that the time is still distant when canine madness will be extinguished by vaccination, but pending that consummation,he feels pretty certain that he will be able to avert the consequences of a bite from a mad dog. He says:.
“Thanks to the duration of incubation after a bite, I have every reason to believe that patients can be rendered insusceptible before the mortal malady had had time to declare itself.” M. Pasteur states, in conclusion, that he had solicited the Minister of Education to appoint a Commission to test his experiments. He added:.
“The principal experiment that I shall attempt will consist in taking from my kennels twenty dogs insusceptible to the disease, and placing the same in comparison with twenty ordinary dogs. I shall then have all these forty dogs bitten by a number of dogs in rabid state. If the facts that I have enunciated are exact, the twenty dogs that I believe to be proof against the disease will remain healthy, while the other twenty will become affected.
For a second experiment no less decisive, I propose to place before the Commission twenty vaccinate and twenty vaccinated dogs. All the forty I shall then inoculate in the most sensitive parts with virus taken from a rabid dog. The twenty vaccinated dogs will resist, and the other twenty will all die of madness, either paralytic or furious”.
That is as far as M. Pasteur has got a present, and his labours clearly tend in the direction of homoeoprophylaxis and homoeopathy; but time and dose are not duly reckoned with. The fatal fallacy underlying the whole thing is regarding the immunity produced by Jennerian or Pasteurian vaccination as a constant factor whereas it is a constantly diminishing one, and must, in thee nature of things, be so.
As a last word I would put on a plea for homoeoprophylactic vaccination, or what might be termed homoeopathic vaccination, That is to say, the vaccine matter is to be prepared as a homoeopathic remedy, and to be given but he poisoning a series of animals is ridiculous; an ordinary vial will do just as well. It is with virus thus attenuated that I used to treat myself when I was attending small-pox instead of being revaccinated. I used to treat my family and others with whom I was compelled to associate in the same way. None of us ever took small-pox.
Burnett was one of the first to speak about vaccination triggering illness. This was discussed in his book, Vaccinosis, published in 1884. He introduced the remedy Bacillinum. He authored twenty books, including the much loved "Fifty Reason for Being a Homeopath." He was the editor of The Homoeopathic World.