Hypothalamic Syndromes Complicating Antirabies Vaccination

PRIOR to the introduction of antirabies vaccine by Pasteur in 1885, both furious and paralytic rabies had been described as occurring in man. The latter was apparently rare, and, although described by van Swieten in 1753, its occurrence was not widely known. Shortly after the introduction of the vaccine, fatal cases of paralysis, occurring during or after treatment, were recorded. These were ascribed by Pasteur and his protagonists to the street virus, producing dumb rabies; in other words, the vaccine had failed to protect. They insisted that the fixed virus of the vaccine was harmless. Pasteur's antagonists were quick to draw a parallel between the fatal paralysis and the state of rabbits infected with fixed virus and claimed that the fixed virus of the vaccine was responsible. The condition was somewhat caustically termed by Peter, Pasteur's chief antagonist,rage de laboratoire. The hypothesis that the fixed virus was innocuous was