CHAPTER VII.

RABIES.

We are now arrived at one of the most important subjects in veterinary

pathology. In other cases the comfort and the existence of our quadruped

patients are alone or chiefly involved, but here the lives of our

employers, and our own too, are at stake, and may be easily, and too

often are, compromised. Here also, however other portions of the chain

may be overlooked or denied, we have the link which most of all connects

the veterinary surgeon with the practitioner of human medicine; or,

rather, here is the circumscribed but valued spot where the veterinary

surgeon has the vantage-ground.

In describing the nature, and cause and treatment of rabies, it will be

most natural to take the animal in which it oftenest appears, by which

it is most frequently propagated; the time at which the danger

commences, and the usual period before the death of the patient.

Some years ago a dog, naturally ferocious, bit a child at Lisson Grove.

The child, to all appearance previously well, died on the third day, and

an inquest was to be held on the body in the evening. The Coroner

ordered the dog to be sent to me for examination The animal was,

contrary to his usual habit, perfectly tractable. This will appear to be

of some importance hereafter. I examined him carefully. No suspicious

circumstance could be found about him. There was no appearance of

rabies. In the mean time the inquest took place, and the corpse of the

child was carefully examined. One medical gentleman thought that there

were some suspicious appearances about the stomach, and another believed

that there was congestion of the brain.

The owner of the dog begged that the animal might not be taken from him,

but might accompany him home. He took him home and destroyed him that no

experiments might be made.

With great difficulty we procured the carcass, and from some

inflammatory appearances about the tongue and the stomach, and the

presence of a small portion of indigestible matter in the stomach, we

were unanimously of opinion that the dog was rabid.

I do not mean to say that the child died hydrophobous, or that its death

was accelerated by the nascent disease existing in the dog. There was

probably some nervous affection that hastened the death of the infant,

and the dog bit the child at the very period when the malady first began

to develop itself. On the following day there were morbid lesions enough

to prove beyond doubt that he was rabid.

This case is introduced because I used afterwards to accompany every

examination of supposed or doubtful rabies with greater caution than I

probably had previously used.

It is occasionally very difficult to detect the existence of rabies in

its nascent state. In the year 1813, a child attempted to rob a dog of

its morning food, and the animal resisting the theft, the child was

slightly scratched by its teeth. No one dreamed of danger. Eight days

afterwards symptoms of rabies appeared in the dog, the malady ran its

course, and the animal died. A few days afterwards the child

sickened--undoubted characteristics of rabies were observed--they ran

their course and the infant was lost.

There are other cases--fortunately not numerous--in the records of human

surgery, resembling this. A person has been bitten by a dog, he has paid

little or no attention to it, and no application of the caustic has been

made. Some weeks, or even months, have passed, he has nearly or quite

forgotten the affair, when he becomes languid and feverish, and full of

fearful apprehensions, and this appearing perhaps during several days,

or more than a week. The empoisonment has then ceased to be a local

affair, the virus has entered into the circulation, and its impression

is made on the constitution generally. Fortunately the disposition to

bite rarely develops itself until the full establishment of the disease,

otherwise we might sometimes inquire whether it were not our duty to

exterminate the whole race of dogs.

The following case deserves to be recorded. On the 21st of October,

1813, a dog was brought to me for examination. He had vomited a

considerable quantity of coagulated blood. I happened to be particularly

busy at the moment, and not observing anything peculiar in his

countenance or manner, I ordered some astringent sedative medicine, and

said that I would see him again in the afternoon.

In the course of the afternoon he was again brought. The vomiting had

quite ceased. His mouth seemed to be swollen, and, on examining him, I

found that some of his incisor teeth, both in the upper and lower jaw,

had been torn out. This somewhat alarmed me; and, on inquiring of the

servant, I was told that he suspected that they had had thieves about

the house on the preceding night, for the dog had torn away the side of

his kennel in attempting to get at them. I scolded him for not having

told me of this in the morning; and then, talking of various things, in

order to prolong the time and to be able closely to watch my patient, I

saw, or thought I saw, but in a very slight degree, that the animal was

tracing the fancied path of some imaginary object. I was then truly

alarmed, and more especially since I had discovered that in the giving

of the physic in the morning the man's hand had been scratched; a youth

had suffered the dog to lick his sore finger, and the animal had also

been observed to lick the sore ear of an infant. He was a remarkably

affectionate dog, and was accustomed to this abominable and inexcusable

nonsense.

I insisted on detaining the dog, and gave the man a letter to the

surgeon, telling him all my fears. He promptly acted on the hint, and

before evening, the proper means were taken with regard to all three.

I watched this dog day after day. He would not eat, but he drank a great

deal more water than I liked. The surgeon was evidently beginning to

doubt whether I was not wrong, but he could not dispute the occasional

wandering of the eye, and the frequent spume upon the water. On the 26th

of October, however, the sixth day after his arrival, we both of us

heard the rabid howl burst from him: he did not, however, die until the

30th. I mention this as another instance of the great difficulty there

is to determine the real nature of the case in an early stage of the

disease.

M. Perquin relates an interesting case. A lady had a greyhound, nine

years old, that was accustomed to lie upon her bed at night, and cover

himself with the bed-clothes. She remarked, one morning, that he had

torn the covering of his bed, and, although he ate but little, drank

oftener, and in larger quantity, than he was accustomed to do. She led

him to a veterinary surgeon, who assured her that there was nothing

serious the matter. On the following day, he bit her fore-finger near

the nail, as she was giving him something to eat. She led him again to

the veterinary surgeon, who assured her that she needed not to be under

the least alarm, and as for the little wound on her finger, it was of no

consequence. On the following day, the 27th of December, the dog died.

He had not ceased to drink most abundantly to the very last.

On the 4th of February, as the lady was dining with her husband, she

found some difficulty in deglutition. She wished to take some wine, but

was unable to swallow it.

On the 5th, she consulted a surgeon. He wished her to swallow a little

soup in his presence. She attempted to do it, but could not accomplish

her object after many an effort. She then fell into a state of violent

agitation, with constriction of the pharynx, and the discharge of a

viscid fluid from the mouth.

On the 7th, she died, four days after the first attack of the disease,

and in a state of excessive loss of flesh.

There can be no doubt that both the dog and his mistress died rabid, the

former having communicated the disease to the latter; but there is no

satisfactory account of the manner in which the dog became diseased. [1]

Joseph Delmaire, of Looberghe, twenty-nine years old, was, on the 6th of

October, 1836, bitten in the hand by a dog that he met with in the

forest, and that was evidently rabid. On the following morning, he went

to a medical man of some repute in the country, who washed the wound,

and scarified it, and terminated the operation by tracing a bloody cross

on the forehead of the patient.

He returned home, but he was far from being satisfied. The image of the

dog that had attacked him was always before him, and his sleep was

troubled with the most frightful dreams. So passed four-and-twenty days,

when Delmaire, rising from his bed, felt the most dreadful trepidation;

he panted violently; it seemed as if an enormous weight oppressed his

chest, and from time to time there was profound sighing and sobbing. He

complained every moment that he was smothered. He attempted to drink,

but it was with great difficulty that a few drops of barley-water were

swallowed. His mouth was dry, his throat burning, his thirst excessive,

and all that he attempted to swallow was rejected with horror.

At nine o'clock at night he was largely bled. His respiration was more

free, but the dread of every fluid remained. After an hour's repose, he

started and felt the most fearful pain in every limb--his whole body was

agitated with violent convulsions. The former place of bleeding was

reopened, and a great quantity of blood escaped. The pulse became small

and accelerated. The countenance was dreadful--the eyes were starting

from their sockets--he continually sprung from his seat and uttered the

most fearful howling. A quantity of foam filled his mouth, and compelled

a continued expectoration. In his violent fits, the strength of six men

was not sufficient to keep him on his bed. In the midst of a sudden

recess of fury he would disengage himself from all that were attempting

to hold him, and dash himself on the floor; there, freed from all

control, he rolled about, beat himself, and tore everything that he

could reach. In the short intervals that separated these crises, he

regained possession of his reasoning powers: he begged his old father to

pardon him, he talked to him and to those around with the most intense

affection, and it was only when he felt that a new attack was at hand,

that he prayed them to leave him. At length his mental excitation began

to subside; his strength was worn out, and he suffered himself to be

placed on his bed. The horrible convulsions from time to time returned,

but the dread of liquors had ceased. He demanded something to drink.

They gave him a little white wine, but he was unable to swallow it; it

was returned through his nostrils. The poor fellow then endeavoured to

sleep; but it was soon perceived that he had ceased to live.

The early symptoms of rabies in the dog are occasionally very obscure.

In the greater number of cases, these are sullenness, fidgetiness, and

continual shifting of posture. Where I have had opportunity, I have

generally found these circumstances in regular succession. For several

consecutive hours perhaps he retreats to his basket or his bed. He shows

no disposition to bite, and he answers the call upon him laggardly. He

is curled up and his face is buried between his paws and his breast. At

length he begins to be fidgety. He searches out new resting-places; but

he very soon changes them for others. He takes again to his own bed; but

he is continually shifting his posture. He begins to gaze strangely

about him as he lies on his bed. His countenance is clouded and

suspicious. He comes to one and another of the family and he fixes on

them a steadfast gaze as if he would read their very thoughts. "I feel

strangely ill," he seems to say: "have you anything to do with it? or

you? or you?" Has not a dog mind enough for this? If we have observed a

rabid dog at the commencement of the disease, we have seen this to the

very life.

There is a species of dog--the small French poodle--the essence of whose

character and constitution is fidgetiness or perpetual motion.

If this dog has been bitten, and rabies is about to establish itself, he

is the most irritative restless being that can be conceived of; starting

convulsively at the slightest sound; disposing of his bed in every

direction, seeking out one retreat after another in order to rest his

wearied frame, but quiet only for a moment in any one, and the motion of

his limbs frequently stimulating chorea and even epilepsy.

A peculiar delirium is an early symptom, and one that will never

deceive. A young man had been bitten by one of his dogs; I was requested

to meet a medical gentleman on the subject: I was a little behind my

time; as I entered the room I found the dog eagerly devouring a pan of

sopped bread. "There is no madness here," said the gentleman. He had

scarcely spoken, when in a moment the dog quitted the sop, and, with a

furious bark sprung against the wall as if he would seize some imaginary

object that he fancied was there. "Did you see that?" was my reply.

"What do you think of it?" "I see nothing in it," was his retort: "the

dog heard some noise on the other side of the wall." At my serious

urging, however, he consented to excise the part. I procured a poor

worthless cur, and got him bitten by this dog, and carried the disease

from this dog to the third victim: they all became rabid one after the

other, and there my experiment ended. The serious matter under

consideration, perhaps, justified me in going so far as I did.

This kind of delirium is of frequent occurrence in the human patient.

The account given by Dr. Bardsley of one of his patients is very

appropriate to on profit purpose:

"I observed that he frequently fixed his eyes with horror and affright

on some ideal object, and then, with a sudden and violent emotion,

buried his head beneath the bed-clothes. The next time I saw him

repeat this action, I was induced to inquire into the cause of his

terror. He asked whether I had not heard howlings and scratchings. On

being answered in the negative, he suddenly threw himself on his

knees, extending his arms in a defensive posture, and forcibly threw

back his head and body. The muscles of the face were agitated by

various spasmodic contractions; his eye-balls glazed, and seemed ready

to start from their sockets; and, at the moment, when crying out in an

agonizing tone, 'Do you not see that black dog?' his countenance and

attitude exhibited the most dreadful picture of complicated horror,

distress, and rage that words can describe or imagination paint."

I have again and again seen the rabid dog start up after a momentary

quietude, with unmingled ferocity depicted on his countenance, and

plunge with a savage howl to the end of his chain. At other times he

would stop and watch the nails in the partition of the stable in which

he was confined, and fancying them to move he would dart at them, and

occasionally sadly bruise and injure himself from being no longer able

to measure the distance of the object. In one of his sudden fits of

violence a rabid dog strangled the Cardinal Crescence, the Legate of the

Pope, at the Council of Trent in 1532.

M. Magendie has often injected into the veins of an hydrophobous dog as

much as five grains of opium without producing any effect; while a

single grain given to the healthy dog would suffice to send him almost

to sleep.

One of Mr. Babington's patients thought that there was a cloud of flies

about him. "Why do you not kill those flies!" he would cry; and then he

would strike at them with his hand, and shrink under the bed-clothes, in

the most dreadful fear.

There is also in the human being a peculiarity in this delirium which

seems to distinguish it from every other kind of mental aberration.

"The patient," in Mr. Lawrence's language, "is pursued by a thousand

phantoms that intrude themselves upon his mind; he holds conversation

with imaginary persons; he fancies himself surrounded with

difficulties, and in the greatest distress. These thoughts seem to

pass through his mind with wonderful rapidity, and to keep him in a

state of the greatest distress, unless he is quickly spoken to or

addressed by his name, and, then, in a moment the charm is broken;

every phantom of imagination disappears, and at once he begins to talk

as calmly and as connectedly as in perfect health."

So it is with the dog, whether he is watching the motes that are

floating in the air, or the insects that are annoying him on the walls,

or the foes that he fancies are threatening him on every side--one word

recalls him in a moment. Dispersed by the magic influence of his

master's voice, every object of terror disappears, and he crawls towards

him with the same peculiar expression of attachment that used to

characterize him.

Then comes a moment's pause--a moment of actual vacuity--the eye slowly

closes, the head droops, and he seems as if his fore feet were giving

way, and he would fall: but he springs up again, every object of terror

once more surrounds him--he gazes wildly around--he snaps--he barks, and

he rushes to the extent of his chain, prepared to meet his imaginary

foe.

The expression of the countenance of the dog undergoes a considerable

change, principally dependent on the previous disposition of the animal.

If he was naturally of an affectionate disposition, there will be an

anxious, inquiring countenance, eloquent, beyond the power of resisting

its influence. It is made up of strange suppositions as to the nature of

the depression of mind under which he labours, mingled with some passing

doubts, and they are but passing, as to the concern which the master has

in the affair; but, most of all, there is an affectionate and confiding

appeal for relief. At the same time we observe some strange fancy,

evidently passing through his mind, unalloyed, however, by the slightest

portion of ferocity.

In the countenance of the naturally savage brute, or him that has been

trained to be savage, there is indeed a fearful change; sometimes the

conjunctiva is highly injected; at other times it is scarcely affected,

hut the eyes have an unusually bright and dazzling appearance. They are

like two balls of fire, and there is a peculiar transparency of the

hyaloid membrane, or injection of that of the retina.

A very early symptom of rabies in the dog, is an extreme degree of

restlessness. Frequently, he is almost invariably wandering about,

shifting from corner to corner, or continually rising up and lying down,

changing his posture in every possible way, disposing of his bed with

his paws, shaking it with his mouth, bringing it to a heap, on which he

carefully lays his chest, or rather the pit of his stomach, and then

rising up and bundling every portion of it out of the kennel. If he is

put into a closed basket, he will not be still for an instant, but turn

round and round without ceasing. If he is at liberty, he will seem to

imagine that something is lost, and he will eagerly search round the

room, and particularly every corner of it, with strange violence and

indecision.

In a very great portion of cases of hydrophobia in the human being,

there is, as a precursory symptom, uneasiness, pain, or itching of the

bitten part. A red line may also be traced up the limb, in the direction

of the lymphatics. In a few cases the wound opens afresh.

The poison is now beginning fatally to act on the tissue, on which it

had previously lain harmless. When the conversation has turned on this

subject, long after the bitten part has been excised, pain has darted

along the limb. I have been bitten much oftener than I liked, by dogs

decidedly rabid, but, proper means being taken, I have escaped; and yet

often, when I have been over-fatigued, or a little out of temper, some

of the old sores have itched and throbbed, and actually become red and

swollen.

The dog appears to suffer a great deal of pain in the ear in common

canker. He will be almost incessantly scratching it, crying piteously

while thus employed. The ear is, oftener than any other part, bitten by

the rabid dog, and, when a wound in the ear, inflicted by a rabid dog,

begins to become painful, the agony appears to be of the intensest kind.

The dog rubs his ear against every projecting body, he scratches it

might and main, and tumbles over and over while he is thus employed.

The young practitioner should be on his guard there. Is this dreadful

itching a thing of yesterday, or, has the dog been subject to canker,

increasing for a considerable period. Canker both internal and external

is a disease of slow growth, and must have been long neglected before it

will torment the patient in the manner that I have described. The

question as to the length of time that an animal has thus suffered will

usually be a sufficient guide.

The mode in which he expresses his torture will serve as another

direction. He will often scratch violently enough when he has canker,

but he will not roll over and over like a football except he is rabid.

If there is very considerable inflammation of the lining membrane of the

ear, and engorgement and ulceration of it, this is the effect of canker;

but if there is only a slight redness of the membrane, or no redness at

all, and yet the dog is incessantly and violently scratching himself, it

is too likely that rabies is at hand.

In the early stage of rabies, the attachment of the dog towards his

owner seems to be rapidly increased, and the expression of that feeling.

He is employed, almost without ceasing, licking the hands, or face, or

any part he can get at. Females, and men too, are occasionally apt to

permit the dog, when in health, to indulge this filthy and very

dangerous habit with regard to them. The virus, generated under the

influence of rabies, is occasionally deposited on a wounded or abraded

surface, and in process of time produces a similar disease in the person

that has been so inoculated by it. Therefore it is that the surgeon so

anxiously inquires of the person that has been bitten, and of all those

to whom the dog has had access, "Has he been accustomed to lick you?

have you any sore places about you that can by possibility have been

licked by him?" If there are, the person is in fully as much danger as

if he had been bitten, and it is quite as necessary to destroy the part

with which the virus may have come in contact. A lady once lost her life

by suffering her dog to lick a pimple on her chin.

There is a beautiful species of dog, often the inhabitant of the

gentleman's stable--the Dalmatian or coach dog. He has, perhaps, less

affection for the human species than any other dog, except the greyhound

and the bull-dog; he has less sagacity than most others, and certainly

less courage. He is attached to the stable; he is the friend of the

horse; they live under the same roof; they share the same bed; and, when

the horse is summoned to his work, the dog accompanies every step. They

are certainly beautiful dogs, and it is pleasing to see the thousand

expressions of friendship between them and the horse; but, in their

continual excursions through the streets, they are exposed to some

danger, and particularly to that of being bitten by rabid dogs. It is a

fearful business when this takes place. The coachman probably did not

see the affray; no suspicion has been excited. The horse rubs his muzzle

to the dog, and the dog licks the face of the horse, and in a great

number of cases the disease is communicated from the one to the other.

The dog in process of time dies, the horse does not long survive, and,

frequently too, the coachman shares their fate. I have known at least

twenty horses destroyed in this way.

A depraved appetite is a frequent attendant on rabies in the dog. He

refuses his usual food; he frequently turns from it with an evident

expression of disgust; at other times, he seizes it with greater or less

avidity, and then drops it, sometimes from disgust, at other times

because he is unable to complete the mastication of it. This palsy of

the organs of mastication, and dropping of the food, after it has been

partly chewed, is a symptom on which implicit confidence may be placed.

Some dogs vomit once or twice in the early period of the disease: when

this happens, they never return to the natural food of the dog, but are

eager for everything that is filthy and horrible. The natural appetite

generally fails entirely, and to it succeeds a strangely depraved one.

The dog usually occupies himself with gathering every little bit of

thread, and it is curious to observe with what eagerness and method he

sets to work, and how completely he effects his object. He then attacks

every kind of dirt and filth, horse-dung, his own dung, and human

excrement. Some breeds of spaniels are very filthy feeders without its

being connected with disease, but the rabid dog eagerly selects the

excrement of the horse, and his own. Some considerable care, however,

must be exercised here. At the period of dentition, and likewise at the

commencement of the sexual affection, the stomach of the dog, and

particularly that of the bitch, sympathises with, or shares in, the

irritability of the gums, and of the constitution generally, and there

is a considerably perverted appetite. The dog also feels the same

propensity that influences the child, that of taking hard substances

into the mouth, and seemingly trying to masticate them. Their pressure

on the gums facilitates the passage of the new teeth. A young dog will,

therefore, be observed gathering up hard substances, and, if he should

chance to die, a not inconsiderable collection of them is sometimes

found in the stomach. They are, however, of a peculiar character; they

consist of small pieces of bone, slick, and coal.

The contents of the stomach of the rabid dog, are often, or generally,

of a most filthy description. Some hair or straw is usually found, but

the greater part is composed of horse-dung, or of his own dung, and it

may be received as a certainly, that if he is found deliberately

devouring it, he is rabid.

Some very important conclusions may be drawn from the appearance and

character of the urine. The dog, and at particular times when he is more

than usually salacious, may, and does diligently search the urining

places; he may even, at those periods, be seen to lick the spot which

another has just wetted; but, if a peculiar eagerness accompanies this

strange employment, if, in the parlour, which is rarely disgraced by

this evacuation, every corner is perseveringly examined, and licked with

unwearied and unceasing industry, that dog cannot be too carefully

watched, there is great danger about him; he may, without any other

symptom, be pronounced to be decidedly rabid. I never knew a single

mistake about this.

Much has been said of the profuse discharge of saliva from the mouth of

the rabid dog. It is an undoubted fact that, in this disease, all the

glands concerned in the secretion of saliva, become increased in bulk

and vascularity. The sublingual glands wear an evident character of

inflammation; but it never equals the increased discharge that

accompanies epilepsy, or nausea. The frothy spume at the corners of the

mouth, is not for a moment to be compared with that which is evident

enough in both of these affections. It is a symptom of short duration,

and seldom lasts longer than twelve hours. The stories that are told of

the mad dog covered with froth, are altogether fabulous. The dog

recovering from, or attacked by a fit, may be seen in this state; but

not the rabid dog. Fits are often mistaken for rabies, and hence the

delusion.

The increased secretion of saliva soon passes away. It lessens in

quantity; it becomes thicker, viscid, adhesive, and glutinous. It clings

to the corners of the mouth, and probably more annoyingly so to the

membrane of the fauces. The human being is sadly distressed by it, he

forces it out with the greatest violence, or utters the falsely supposed

bark of a dog, in his attempts to force it from his mouth. This symptom

occurs in the human being, when the disease is fully established, or at

a late period of it. The dog furiously attempts to detach it with his

paws.

It is an early symptom in the dog, and it can scarcely be mistaken in

him. When he is fighting with his paws at the corners of his mouth, let

no one suppose that a bone is sticking between the poor fellow's teeth;

nor should any useless and dangerous effort be made to relieve him. If

all this uneasiness arose from a bone in the mouth, the mouth would

continue permanently open instead of closing when the animal for a

moment discontinues his efforts. If after a while he loses his balance

and tumbles over, there can be no longer any mistake. It is the saliva

becoming more and more glutinous, irritating the fauces and threatening

suffocation.

To this naturally and rapidly succeeds an insatiable thirst. The dog

that still has full power over the muscles of his jaws continues lo lap.

He knows not when to cease, while the poor fellow labouring under the

dumb madness, presently to be described, and whose jaw and tongue are

paralysed, plunges his muzzle into the water-dish to his very eyes, in

order that he may get one drop of water into the back part of his mouth

to moisten and to cool his dry and parched fauces. Hence, instead of

this disease being always characterised by the dread of water in the

dog, it is marked by a thirst often perfectly unquenchable. Twenty years

ago, this assertion would have been peremptorily denied. Even at the

present day we occasionally meet with those who ought to know better,

and who will not believe that the dog which fairly, or perhaps eagerly,

drinks, can be rabid.

January 22d, 1815.--A Newfoundland dog belonging to a gentleman in

Piccadilly was supposed to have swallowed a penny-piece on the 20th. On

the evening of that day he was dull, refused his food, and would not

follow his master.

21st. He became restless and pouting, and continually shifting his

position. He would not eat nor would he drink water, but followed his

mistress into her bed-room, which he had never done before, and eagerly

lapped the urine from her chamber-pot. He was afterwards seen lapping

his own urine. His restlessness and panting increased, He would neither

eat nor drink, and made two or three attempts to vomit.

22d. He was brought to me this evening. His eyes were wild, the

conjunctiva considerably inflamed, and he panted quickly and violently.

There was a considerable flow of saliva from the corners of his mouth.

He was extremely restless and did not remain in one position half a

minute. There was an occasional convulsive nodding motion of the head.

The eyes were wandering, and evidently following some imaginary object;

but he was quickly recalled from his delirium by my voice or that of his

master. In a few moments, however, he was wandering again. He had

previously been under my care, and immediately recognised me and offered

me his paw. His bark was changed and had a slight mixture of the howl,

and there was a husky choking noise in the throat.

I immediately declared that he was rabid, and with some reluctance on

the part of his master, he was left with me.

23d, 8 A. M. The breathing was less quick and laborious. The spasm of

the head was no longer visible. The flow of saliva had stopped and there

was less delirium. The jaw began to be dependent: the rattling, choking

noise in his throat louder. He carried straw about in his mouth. He

picked up some pieces of old leather that lay within his reach and

carefully concealed them under his bed. Two minutes afterwards he would

take them out again, and look at them, and once more hide them. He

frequently voided his urine in small quantities, but no longer lapped

it. A little dog was lowered into the den, but he took no notice of it.

10 P. M. Every symptom of fever returned with increased violence. He

panted very much, and did not remain in the same posture two seconds. He

was continually running to the end of his chain and attempting to bite.

He was eagerly and wildly watching some imaginary object. His voice was

hoarser--more of the howl mixing with it. The lips were distorted, and

the tongue very black. He was evidently getting weaker. After two or

three attempts to escape, he would sit down for a second, and then rise

and plunge to the end of his chain. He drank frequently, yet but little

at a time, and that without difficulty or spasm.

12 P. M. The thirst strangely increased. He had drunk or spilled full

three quarts of water. There was a peculiar eagerness in his manner. He

plunged his nose to the very bottom of his pan, and then snapped at the

bubbles which he raised. No spasm followed the drinking. He took two or

three pieces from my hand, but immediately dropped them from want of

power to hold them. Yet he was able for a moment suddenly to close his

jaws. When not drinking he was barking with a harsh sound, and

frequently started suddenly, watching, and catching at some imaginary

object.

24th, A. M. He was more furious, yet weaker. The thirst was insatiable.

He was otherwise diligently employed in shattering and tearing

everything within his reach. He died about three o'clock.

It is impossible to say what was the origin of this disease in him. It

is not connected with any degree or variation of temperature, or any

particular state of the atmosphere. It is certainly more frequent in the

summer or the beginning of autumn than in the winter or spring, because

it is a highly nervous and febrile disease, and the degree of fever, and

irritability, and ferocity, and consequent mischief are augmented by

increase of temperature. In the great majority of cases, the inoculation

can be distinctly proved. In very few can the possibility be denied. The

injury is inflicted in an instant. There is no contest, and before the

injured party can prepare to retaliate, the rabid dog is far away.

It can easily be believed that when a favourite dog has, but for a

moment, lagged behind, he may be bitten without the owner's knowledge or

suspicion. A spaniel belonging to a lady became rabid. The dog was her

companion in her grounds at her country residence, and it was rarely out

of her sight except for a few minutes in the morning, when the servant

took it out. She was not conscious of its having been bitten, and the

servant stoutly denied it. The animal died. A few weeks afterwards the

footman was taken ill. He was hydrophobous. In one of his intervals of

comparative quietude he confessed that, one morning, his charge had been

attacked and rolled over by another dog; that there was no appearance of

its having been bitten, but that it had been made sadly dirty, and he

had washed it before he suffered it again to go into the drawing-room.

The dog that attacked it must have been rabid, and some of his saliva

must have remained about the coat of the spaniel, by which the servant

was fatally inoculated.

Another case of this fearful disease must not be passed over. A dog that

had been docile and attached to his master and mistress, was missing one

morning, and came home in the evening almost covered with dirt. He slunk

to his basket, and would pay no attention to any one. His owners thought

it rather strange, and I was sent for in the morning. He was lying on

the lap of his mistress, but was frequently shifting his posture, and

every now and then he started, as if he heard some strange sound. I

immediately told them what was the matter, and besought them to place

him in another and secure room. He had been licking both their hands. I

was compelled to tell them at once what was the nature of the case, and

besought them to send at once for their surgeon. They were perfectly

angry at my nonsense, as they called it, and I took my leave, but went

immediately to their medical man, and told him what was the real state

of the case. He called, as it were accidentally, a little while

afterwards, and I was not far behind him. The surgeon did his duty, and

they escaped.

In May, 1820, I attended on a bitch at Pimlico. She had snapped at the

owner, bitten the man-servant and several dogs, was eagerly watching

imaginary objects, and had the peculiar rabid howl. I offered her water.

She started back with a strange expression of horror, and fell into

violent convulsions that lasted about a minute. This was repeated a

little while afterwards, and with the same result. She was destroyed.

The horrible spasms of the human being at the sight of, or the attempt

to swallow, fluids occur sufficiently often to prove the identity of the

disease in the biped and the quadruped; but not in one in fifty cases is

there, in the dog, the slightest reluctance to liquids, or difficulty in

swallowing them.

In almost every case in which the dog utters any sound during the

disease, there is a manifest change of voice. In the dog labouring under

ferocious madness, it is perfectly characteristic. There is no other

sound that it resembles. The animal is generally standing, or

occasionally sitting, when the singular sound is heard. The muzzle is

always elevated. The commencement is that of a perfect bark, ending

abruptly and very singularly, in a howl, a fifth, sixth, or eighth

higher than at the commencement. Dogs are often enough heard howling,

but in this case it is the perfect bark, and the perfect howl rapidly

succeeding to the bark.

Every sound uttered by the rabid dog is more or less changed. The

huntsman, who knows the voice of every dog in his pack, occasionally

hears a strange challenge. He immediately finds out that dog, and puts

him, as quickly as possible, under confinement. Two or three days may

pass over, and there is not another suspicious circumstance about the

animal; still he keeps him under quarantine, for long experience has

taught him to listen to that warning. At length the disease is manifest

in its most fearful form.

There is another partial change of voice, to which the ear of the

practitioner will, by degrees, become habituated, and which will

indicate a change in the state of the animal quite as dangerous as the

dismal howl; I mean when there is a hoarse inward bark, with a slight

but characteristic elevation of the tone. In other cases, after two or

three distinct barks, will come the peculiar one mingled with the howl.

Both of them will terminate fatally, and in both of them the rabid howl

cannot possibly be mistaken.

There is a singular brightness in the eye of the rabid dog, but it does

not last more than two or three days. It then becomes dull and wasted; a

cloudiness steals over the conjunctiva, which changes to a yellow tinge,

and then to a dark green, indicative of ulceration deeply seated within

the eye. In eight and forty hours from the first clouding of the eye, it

becomes one disorganised mass.

There is in the rabid dog a strange embarrassment of general

sensibility--a seemingly total loss of feeling.

Absence of pain in the bitten part is an almost invariable accompaniment

of rabies. I have known a dog set to work, and gnaw and tear the flesh

completely away from his legs and feet. At other times the penis is

perfectly demolished from the very base. Ellis in his "Shepherd's Sure

Guide," asserts, that, however severely a mad dog is beaten, a cry is

never forced from him. I am certain of the truth of this, for I have

again and again failed in extracting that cry. Ellis tells that at the

kennel at Goddesden, some of the grooms heated a poker red hot, and

holding it near the mad hound's mouth, he most greedily seized it, and

kept it until the mouth was most dreadfully burned.

In the great majority of cases of furious madness, and in almost every

case of dumb madness, there is evident affection of the lumbar portion

of the spinal cord. There is a staggering gait, not indicative of

general weakness, but referable to the hind quarters alone, and

indicating an affection of the lumbar motor nerve. In a few cases it

approaches more to a general paralytic affection.

In the very earliest period of rabies, the person accustomed to dogs

will detect the existence of the disease.

The animal follows the flight, as has been already stated, of various

imaginary objects. I have often watched the changing countenance of the

rabid dog when he has been lost to every surrounding object. I have seen

the brightening countenance and the wagging tail as some pleasing vision

has passed before him; but, oftener has the countenance indicated the

mingled dislike and fear with which the intruder was regarded. As soon

as the phantom came within the proper distance he darted on it with true

rabid violence.

A spaniel, seemingly at play, snapped, in the morning, at the feet of

several persons. In the evening he bit his master, his master's friend,

and another dog. The old habits of obedience and affection then

returned. His master, most strangely, did not suspect the truth, and

brought the animal to me to be examined. The animal was, as I had often

seen him, perfectly docile and eager to be caressed. At my suggestion,

or rather entreaty, he was left with me. On the following morning the

disease was plain enough, and on the following day he died. A

post-mortem examination took place, and proved that he was unequivocally

rabid.

A lady would nurse her dog, after I had declared it to be rabid, and

when he was dangerous to every one but herself, and even to her from the

saliva which he plentifully scattered about. At length he darted at

every one that entered the room, until a footman keeping the animal at

bay with the poker, the husband of the lady dragged her from the room.

The noise that the dog made was then terrific, and he almost gnawed his

way through the door. At midnight his violence nearly ceased, and the

door was partially opened. He was staggering and falling about, with

every limb violently agitated. At the entreaty of the lady, a servant

ventured in to make a kind of bed for him. The dog suddenly darted at

him, and dropped and died.

A terrier, ten years old, had been ill, and refused all food for three

days. On the fourth day he bit a cat of which he had been unusually

fond, and he likewise bit three dogs. I was requested to see him. I

found him loose in the kitchen, and at first refused to go in, but,

after observing him for a minute or two, I thought that I might venture.

He had a peculiarly wild and eager look, and turned sharply round at the

least noise. He often watched the flight of some imaginary object, and

pursued with the utmost fury every fly that he saw. He searchingly

sniffed about the room, and examined my legs with an eagerness that made

me absolutely tremble. His quarrel with the cat had been made up, and

when he was not otherwise employed he was eagerly licking her and her

kittens. In the excess or derangement of his fondness, he fairly rolled

them from one end of the kitchen to another. With difficulty I induced

his master to permit me to destroy him.

It is not every dog, that in the most aggravated state of the disease

shows a disposition to bite. The finest Newfoundland dog that I ever saw

became rabid. He had been bitten by a cur, and was supposed to have been

thoroughly examined in the country. No wound, however, was found: the

circumstance was almost forgotten, and he came up to the metropolis with

his master. He became dull, disinclined to play, and refused all food.

He was continually watching imaginary objects, but he did not snap at

them. There was no howl, nor any disposition to bite. He offered himself

to be caressed, and he was not satisfied except he was shaken by the

paw. On the second day I saw him. He watched every passing object with

peculiar anxiety, and followed with deep attention the motions of a

horse, his old acquaintance; but he made no effort to escape, nor

evinced any disposition to do mischief. I went to him, and patted and

coaxed him, and he told me as plainly as looks and actions, and a

somewhat deepened whine could express it, how much he was gratified. I

saw him on the third day. He was evidently dying. He could not crawl

even to the door of his temporary kennel; but he pushed forward his paw

a little way, and, as I shook it, I felt the tetanic muscular action

which accompanies the departure of life.

On the other hand there are rabid dogs whose ferocity knows no bounds.

If they are threatened with a stick, they fly at, and seize it, and

furiously shake it. They are incessantly employed in darting to the end

of their chain, and attempting to crush it with their teeth, and tearing

to pieces their kennel, or the wood work that is within their reach.

They are regardless of pain. The canine teeth, the incisor teeth are

torn away; yet, unwearied and insensible to suffering, they continue

their efforts to escape. A dog was chained near a kitchen fire. He was

incessant in his endeavours to escape, and, when he found that he could

not effect it, he seized, in his impotent rage, the burning coals as

they fell, and crushed them with his teeth.

If by chance a dog in this state effects his escape, he wanders over the

country bent on destruction. He attacks both the quadruped and the

biped. He seeks the village street, or the more crowded one of the town,

and he suffers no dog to escape him. The horse is his frequent prey, and

the human being is not always safe from his attack. A rabid dog running

down Park-lane, in 1825, bit no fewer than five horses, and fully as

many dogs. He was seen to steal treacherously upon some of his victims,

and inflict the fatal wound. Sometimes he seeks the more distant

pasturage. He gets among the sheep, and more than forty have been

fatally inoculated in one night. A rabid dog attacked a herd of cows,

and five-and-twenty of them fell victims. In July, 1813, a mad dog broke

into the menagerie of the Duchess of York, at Oatlands, and although the

palisades that divided the different compartments of the menagerie were

full six feet in height, and difficult, or apparently almost impossible

to climb, he was found asleep in one of them, and it was clearly

ascertained that he had bitten at least ten of the dogs.

At length the rabid dog becomes completely exhausted, and slowly reels

along the road with his tail depressed, seemingly half unconscious of

surrounding objects. His open mouth, and protruding and blackened

tongue, and rolling gait sufficiently characterise him. He creeps into

some sheltered place and then he sleeps twelve hours or more. It is

dangerous to disturb his slumbers, for his desire to do mischief

immediately returns, and the slightest touch, or attempt to caress him,

is repaid by a fatal wound. This should be a caution never to meddle

with a sleeping dog in a way-side house, and, indeed, never to disturb

him anywhere.

In an early period of the disease in some dogs, and in others when the

strength of the animal is nearly worn away, a peculiar paralysis of the

muscles of the tongue and jaws is seen. The mouth is partially open, and

the tongue protruding. In some cases the dog is able to close his mouth

by a sudden and violent effort, and is as ferocious and as dangerous as

one the muscles of whose face are unaffected. At other times the palsy

is complete, and the animal is unable to close his mouth or retract his

tongue. These latter cases, however, are rare.

A dog must not be immediately condemned because he has this open mouth

and fixed jaw. Bones constitute a frequent and a considerable portion of

the food of dogs. In the eagerness with which these bones are crushed,

spicula or large pieces of them become wedged between the molar teeth,

and form an inseparable obstacle to the closing of the teeth. The tongue

partially protrudes. There is a constant discharge of saliva from the

mouth, far greater than when the true paralysis exists. The dog is

continually fighting at the corners of his mouth, and the countenance is

expressive of intense anxiety, although not of the same irritable

character as in rabies.

I was once requested to meet a medical gentleman in consultation

respecting a supposed case of rabies. There was protrusion and

discoloration of the tongue, and fighting at the corners of the mouth,

and intense anxiety of countenance. He had been in this state for

four-and-twenty hours. This was a case in which I should possibly have

been deceived had it been the first dog that I had seen with dumb

madness. After having tested a little the ferocity or manageableness of

the animal, I passed my hand along the outside of the jaws, and felt a

bone wedged between two of the grinders. The forceps soon set all right

with him.

It is time to inquire more strictly into the post-mortem appearances of

rabies in the dog.

In dumb madness the unfailing accompaniment is, to a greater or less

degree, paralysis of the muscles of the lower jaw, and the tongue is

discoloured and swollen, and hanging from the mouth; more blood than

usual also is deposited in the anterior and inferior portion of it. Its

colour varies from a dark red to a dingy purple, or almost black. In

ferocious madness it is usually torn and bruised, or it is discoloured

by the dirt and filth with which it has been brought into contact, and,

not unfrequently, its anterior portion is coated with some disgusting

matter. The papillae, or small projections on the back of the tongue,

are elongated and widened, and their mucous covering evidently reddened.

The orifices of the glands of the tongue are frequently enlarged,

particularly as they run their course along the froenum of the tongue.

The fauces, situated at the posterior part of the mouth, generally

exhibit traces of inflammation. They appear in the majority of cases of

ferocious madness, and they are never deficient after dumb madness. They

are usually most intense either towards the palatine arch or the larynx.

Sometimes an inflammatory character is diffused through its whole

extent, but occasionally it is more or less intense towards one or both

of the terminations of the fauces, while the intermediate portion

retains nearly its healthy hue.

There is one circumstance of not unfrequent occurrence, which will at

once decide the case--the presence of indigestible matter, probably

small in quantity, in the back part of the mouth. This speaks volumes as

to the depraved appetite of the patient, and the loss of power in the

muscles of the pharynx.

Little will depend on the tonsils of the throat. They occasionally

enlarge to more than double their usual size; but this is more in quiet

than in ferocious madness. The insatiable thirst of the rabid dog is

perhaps connected with this condition of them.

The epiglottis should be very carefully observed. It is more or less

injected in every case of rabies. Numerous vessels increase in size and

multiply round its edge, and there is considerable injection and

thickening.

Inflammation of the edges of the glottis, and particularly of the

membrane which covers its margin, is often seen, and accounts for the

harsh guttural breathing which frequently accompanies dumb madness. The

inflammatory blush of the larynx, though often existing in a very slight

degree, deserves considerable attention.

The appearances in the trachea are very uncertain. There is occasionally

the greatest intensity of inflammation through the whole of it; at other

times there is not the slightest appearance of it. There is the same

uncertainty with regard to the bronchial tubes and the lungs; but there

is no characteristic symptom or lesion in the lungs.

Great stress has been laid on the appearance of the heart; but,

generally speaking, in nine cases out of ten, the heart of the rabid dog

will exhibit no other symptoms of disease than an increased yet variable

deepness of colour in the lining membrane of the ventricles. No

dependence can be placed on any of the appearances of the oesophagus;

and, when they are at the worst, the inflammation occupies only a

portion of that tube.

With regard to the interior of the stomach, if the dog has been dead

only a few hours the true inflammatory blush will remain. If

four-and-twenty hours have elapsed, the bright red colour will have

changed to a darker red, or a violet or a brownish hue. In a few hours

after this, a process of corrosion will generally commence, and the

mucous membrane will be softened and rendered thinner, and, to a certain

extent, eaten through. The examiner, however, must not attribute that to

disease which is the natural process of the cession of life.

Much attention should be paid to the appearance of the stomach and its

contents. If it contains a strange mingled mass of hair, and hay, and

straw, and horse-dung, and earth, or portions of the bed on which the

dog had lain, we should seldom err if we affirmed that he died rabid;

for it is only under the influence of the depraved appetite of rabies

that such substances are devoured. It is not the presence of every kind

of extraneous substance that will be satisfactory: pieces of coal, or

wood, or even the filthiest matter, will not justify us in pronouncing

the animal to be rabid; it is that peculiarly mingled mass of straw, and

hair, and filth of various kinds, that must indicate the existence of

rabies.

When there are no solid indigesta, but a fluid composed principally of

vitiated bile or extravasated blood, there will be a strong indication

of the presence of rabies. When, also, there are in the duodenum and

jejunum small portions of indigesta, the detection of the least quantity

will be decisive. The remainder has been ejected by vomit; and inquiry

should be made of the nature of the matter that has been discharged.

The inflammation of rabies is of a peculiar character in the stomach. It

is generally confined to the summits of the folds of the stomach, or it

is most intense there. On the summits of the rugae there are effusions

of bloody matter, or spots of ecchymosis, presenting an appearance

almost like crushed black currants. There may be only a few of them; but

they are indications of the evil that has been effected.

From appearances that present themselves in the intestines, the bladder,

the blood-vessels, or the brain, no conclusion can be drawn; they are

simply indications of inflammation.

We now rapidly, and for a little while, retrace our steps. What is the

cause of this fatal disease, that has so long occupied our attention? It

is the saliva of a rabid animal received into a wound, or on an abraded

surface. In horses, cattle, sheep, swine, and the human being, it is

caused by inoculation alone; but, according to some persons, it is

produced spontaneously in other animals.

I will suppose that a wound by a rabid dog is inflicted. The virus is

deposited on or near its surface, and there it remains for a certain

indefinite period of time. The wound generally heals up kindly; in fact,

it differs in no respect from a similar wound inflicted by the teeth of

an animal in perfect health. Weeks and months, in some cases, pass on,

and there is nothing to indicate danger, until a degree of itching in

the cicatrix of the wound is felt. From its long-continued presence as a

foreign body, it may have rendered the tissue, or nervous fibre

connected with it, irritable and susceptible of impression, or it may

have attracted and assimilated to itself certain elements, and rabies is

produced.

The virus does not appear to have the same effect on every animal. Of

four dogs bitten by, or inoculated from, one that is rabid, three,

perhaps, would display every symptom of the disease. Of four human

beings, not more than one would become rabid. John Hunter used to say

not more than one in twenty; but that is probably erroneous. Cattle

appear to have a greater chance of escape, and sheep a still greater

chance.

The time of incubation is different in different animals. With regard to

the human being, there are various strange and contradictory stories.

Some have asserted that it has appeared on the very day on which the

bite was inflicted, or within two or three days of that time. Dr.

Bardsley, on the other hand, relates a case in which twelve years

elapsed between the bite and the disease. If the virus may lurk so long

as this in the constitution, it is a most lamentable affair. According

to one account, more than thirty years intervened. The usual time

extends from three weeks to six or seven months.

In the dog I have never seen a case in which plain and palpable rabies

occurred in less than fourteen days after the bite. The average time I

should calculate at five or six weeks. In three months I should consider

the animal as tolerably safe. I am, however, relating my own experience,

and have known but two instances in which the period much exceeded three

months. In one of these five months elapsed, and the other did not

become affected until after the expiration of the seventh month.

The quality and the quantity of the virus may have something to do with

this, and so may the predisposition in the bitten animal to be affected

by the poison. If it is connected with oestrum, the bitch will probably

become a disgusting, as well as dangerous animal; if with parturition,

there is a strange perversion of maternal affection--she is incessantly

and violently licking her young, continually shifting them from place to

place; and, in less than four-and-twenty hours, they will be destroyed

by the reckless manner in which they are treated. In both cases the

development of the disease seems to wait on the completion of her time

of pregnancy. It appears in the space of two months after the bite, if

her parturition is near at hand, or it is delayed for double that time,

if the period of labour is so far distant.

The duration of the disease is different in different animals. In man it

has run its course in twenty-four hours, and rarely exceeds seventy-two.

In the horse from three to four days; in the sheep and ox from five to

seven; and in the dog from four to six.

Of the real nature of the rabid virus, we know but little. It has never

been analysed, and it would be a difficult process to analyse it. It is

not diffused by the air, nor communicated by the breath, nor even by

actual contact, if the skin is sound. It must be received into a wound.

It must come in contact with some tissue or nervous fibre, and lie

dormant there for a considerable, but uncertain period. The absorbents

remove everything around; whatever else is useless, or would he

injurious, is taken away, but this strange substance is unchanged. It

does not enter into the circulation, for there it would undergo some

modification and change, or would be rejected. It lies for a time

absolutely dormant, and far longer than any other known poison; but, at

length, the tissue on which it has lain begins to render it somewhat

sensible, and assimilates to itself certain elements. The cicatrix

begins to be painful, and inflammation spreads around. The absorbents

are called into more powerful action; they begin to attack the virus

itself, and a portion of it is taken up, and carried into the

circulation, and acquires the property of assimilating other secretions

to its own nature, or it is determined to one of the secretions only; it

alters the character of that secretion, envenoms it, and gives it the

power of propagating the disease.

Something like this is the history of many animal poisons. In variola

and the vaccine disease the poison is determined to the skin, in

glanders to the Schneiderian membrane, and in farcy to the superficial

absorbents. Each in its turn becomes the depot of the poison. So it is

with the salivary glands of the rabid animal; in them it is formed, or

to them it is determined, and from them, and them alone, it is

communicated to other animals.

Professor Dick, in his valuable Manual of Veterinary Science, states

some peculiar views, and those highly interesting, respecting the

disease of rabies. He holds it to be essentially an inflammatory

affection, attacking peculiarly the mucous membrane of the nose, and

extending thence through the cribriform plate of the ethmoid bones to

the interior part of the brain, and so giving rise to a derangement of

the nervous system as a necessary consequence. This train of symptoms

constitutes mainly, if not wholly, the essence of an occasional epidemic

not unlike some forms of influenza or epizootic disease, and the bite of

a rabid animal is not always, to an animal so bitten, the exciting cause

of the disease, but merely an accidental concomitant in the prevailing

disorder. Also the disease hydrophobia, produced in man, is not always

the result of any poison introduced into his system, but merely the

melancholy, and often fatal result of panic fear, and of the disordered

slate of the imagination. Those who are acquainted with the effects of

sympathy, and imitation, and panic, in the production of nervous

disorders, will readily apprehend the meaning of the Professor.

Some of these diseases speedily run their course and exhaust themselves.

Cowpox and farcy, in many instances, have this character. Perhaps, to a

certain degree, this may be affirmed of all of them. I have seen cases,

which I could not mistake, in which the symptoms of rabies were one

after another developed. The dog was plainly and undeniably rabid, and I

had given him up as lost; but, after a certain period, the symptoms

began to be less distinct; they gradually disappeared, and the animal

returned to perfect health. This may have formed one ground of belief in

the power of certain medicines, and most assuredly it gives

encouragement to perseverance in the use of remedial measures.

It has then been proved, and I hope demonstratively, that rabies is

propagated by inoculation. It has also been established that although

every animal labouring under this disease is capable of communicating

it, yet, with very few exceptions, it can be traced to the bite of the

dog. It has still further been shown that the malady, generally appears

at some period between the third and seventh month from the time of

inoculation. At the expiration of the eighth month, the animal may be

considered to be safe; for there is only one acknowledged case on

record, in which the disease appeared in the dog after the seventh month

from the bite had passed.

Then it would appear that if a species of quarantine could be

established, and every dog confined separately for eight months, the

disease would be annihilated in our country, or could only reappear in

consequence of the importation of some infected animal. Such a course of

proceeding, however, could never be enforced either in the sporting

world or among the peasantry. Other measures, however, might be resorted

to in order to lessen the devastations of this malady; and that which

first presents itself to the mind as a powerful cause of rabies is the

number of useless and dangerous dogs that are kept in the country for

the most nefarious and, in the neighbourhood of considerable towns, the

most brutal purposes; without the slightest hesitation, I will affirm

that rabies is propagated, nineteen times out of twenty, by the cur and

the lurcher in the country, and the fighting-dog in towns.

A tax should be laid on every useless dog, and doubly or trebly heavier

than on the sporting-dog. No dog except the shepherd's should be exempt

from this tax, unless, perhaps, it is the truck-dog, and his owner

should be compelled to take out a license; to have his name in large

letters on his cart; and he should be heavily fined if the animal is

found loose in the streets, or if he is used for fighting.

The disease is rarely propagated by petted and house-dogs They are

little exposed to the danger of inoculation; yet, we pity, or almost

detest, the folly of those by whom their favourites are indulged, and

spoiled even more than their children.

We will now suppose that a person has had the misfortune to be bitten by

a rabid dog: what course is he to pursue? What preventive means are to

be adopted? Some persons, and of no mean standing in the medical world,

have recommended a ligature. The reply would be, that this ligature must

be worn during a very inconvenient and dangerous period of time. The

virus lies in the wound inert during many successive weeks and months.

Dr. Haygarth first suggested that a long-continued stream of warm water

should be poured upon the wound from the mouth of a kettle. He says that

the poison exists in a fluid form, and therefore we should suppose that

water would be its natural solvent. Dr. Massey adds to this, that if the

wound is small, it should be dilated, in order that the stream may

descend on the part on which the poison is deposited. We are far,

however, from being certain that this falling of water on the part, may

not by possibility force a portion of the virus farther into the

texture, or cause it to be entangled with other parts of the wound. [2]

There is a similar or stronger objection to the cupping-glass of Dr.

Barry. The virus, forced from the texture with which it lies in contact

by the rush of blood from the substance beneath, is too likely to

inoculate, or become entangled with, other parts of the wound.

There is great objection to suction of the wound; for, in addition to

this possible entanglement, the lips, or the mouth, may have been

abraded, and thus the danger considerably aggravated. There also remains

the undecided question as to the absorption of the virus through the

medium of a mucous surface.

Excision of the part is the mode of prevention usually adopted by the

human surgeon, and to a certain extent it is a judicious practice. If

the virus is not received into the circulation, but lies dormant in the

wound for a considerable time, the disease cannot supervene if the

inoculated part is destroyed.

This operation, however, demands greater skill and tact than is

generally supposed. It requires a determination fully to accomplish the

desired object; for every portion of the wound with which the tooth

could possibly have come into contact, must be removed. This is often

exceedingly difficult to accomplish, on account of the situation and

direction of the wound. The knife must not enter the wound, or it will

be likely to be itself empoisoned, and then the mischief and the danger

will be increased instead of removed. Dr. Massey was convinced of the

impropriety of this when he advised that,

"should the knife by chance enter the wound that had been made by the

dog's tooth, the operation should be recommenced with a clean knife,

otherwise the sound parts will become inoculated."

If the incision is made freely and properly round the wound, and does

not penetrate into it, yet the blood will follow the knife, and a

portion of it will enter into the wound caused by the dog, and will come

in contact with the virus, and will probably be contaminated, and will

then overflow the original wound, and will be received into the new

incision, and will carry with it the seeds of disease and death:

therefore it is, that scarcely a year passes without some lamentable

instances of the failure of incisions. It has occurred in the practice

of the most eminent surgeons, and seems scarcely or not all to impeach

the skill of the operator.

Aware of this, there are very few human practitioners who do not use the

caustic after the knife. Every portion of the new wound is submitted to

its influence. They do not consider the patient to be safe without this

second operation. But has the question never occurred to them, that if

the caustic is necessary to give security to the operation by incision,

the knife might have been spared, and the caustic alone used?

The veterinary surgeon, when operating on the horse, or cattle, or the

dog, frequently has recourse to the actual cautery. I could, perhaps,

excuse this practice, although I would not adopt it, in superficial

wounds; but I do not know the instrument that could be safely used in

deeper ones. If it were sufficiently small to adapt itself to the

tortuous course of little wounds, it would be cooled and inert before it

could have destroyed the lower portions of them. If it were of

sufficient substance long to retain the heat, it would make a large and

fearful chasm, and probably interfere with the future usefulness of the

animal. The result of the cases in which the cautery has been used

proves that in too many instances it is an inefficient protection. The

rabid dog in Park Lane has already been mentioned. He bit several horses

before he could be destroyed. Caustic was applied to one of them, and

the hot iron to the others. The first was saved, almost all the others

were lost. A similar case occurred last spring; the caustic was an

efficacious preventive; the cautery was perfectly useless. What caustic

then should be applied? Certainly not that to which the surgeon usually

has recourse--a liquid one. Certainly not one that speedily deliquesces;

for they are both unmanageable, and, what is a more important

consideration, they may hold in solution, and not decompose the poison,

and thus inoculate the whole of the wound. The application which

promises to be successful, is that of the 'lunar caustic'. It is

perfectly manageable, and, being sharpened to a point, may be applied

with certainty to every recess and sinuosity of the wound.

Potash and nitric acid form a caustic which will destroy the substances

with which they come in contact, but the combination of this caustic and

the animal fibre will be a soft or semi-fluid mass. In this the virus is

suspended, and with this it lies or may be precipitated upon the living

fibre beneath. Then there is danger of re-inoculation; and it would seem

that this fatal process is often accomplished. The eschar formed by the

lunar caustic is dry, hard, and insoluble. If the whole of the wound has

been fairly exposed to its action, an insoluble compound of animal fibre

and the metallic salt is produced, in which the virus is wrapped up, and

from which it cannot be separated. In a short time the dead matter

sloughs away, and the virus is thrown off with it.

Previous to applying the caustic it will sometimes be necessary to

enlarge the wound, in order that every part may be fairly got at; and

the eschar having sloughed off, it will always be prudent to apply the

caustic a second time, but more slightly, in order to destroy any part

that may not have received the full influence of the first operation, or

that, by possibility, might have been inoculated during the operation.

Mr. Smerdon, in the Medical and Physical Journal, March 1820, thus

reasons:

"All the morbid poisons that require to lie dormant a certain time

before their effects are manifested, pass into the system through the

medium of the absorbents," (we somewhat differ from Mr. Smerdon here,

but his reasoning is equally applicable to the nervous system,) "and

if the absorbents are excited, their action is increased. I am

satisfied that even in a venereal sore the application of a caustic,

instead of destroying the disease, causes its rapid extension. Then,"

asks he, "if the virus on a small venereal sore is rendered more

active by the caustic, is it not highly probable that the same law

holds good with respect to the poison of rabies?"

The sooner the caustic is applied the better; but I should not hesitate

to have recourse to it even after the constitution has become affected.

It is related in the Medico-Chirurgical Annals of Altenburg (Sept.

1821), that two men were bitten by a rabid dog. One became hydrophobous

and died; the other had evident symptoms of hydrophobia a few days

afterwards. A surgeon excised the bitten part, and the disease

disappeared. After a period of six days the symptoms returned. The wound

was examined; considerable fungus was found sprouting from its bottom.

This was extirpated. The hydrophobia symptoms were again removed, and

the man did well. This is a most instructive case.

In the Journal Pratique de Médecine Vétérinaire, M. Damalix gives an

interesting account of the effect of a bite of a rabid dog on a horse.

On the 8th of July, 1828, a fowl-merchant, proceeding to the market of

Colmar, was attacked by a dog, who, after some fruitless efforts to get

into the cart, bit the horse on the left side of the face, and fled

precipitately. A veterinary surgeon was sent for, who applied the

cautery to the horse, gave him some populeum ointment, and bled him.

Everything appeared to go on well, and on the 16th the wounds were

healed.

On the 25th a great alteration took place. The horse was careless and

slow; he sometimes refused to go at all, and would not attend in the

least to the whip, which had never occurred before. In the evening the

wounds opened spontaneously, an ichorous and infectious pus run from

them; there was salivation and utter loss of appetite: strange fancies

seemed to possess him; he showed a desire to bite his master. The

veterinary surgeon might approach him with safety; but the moment his

owner or the children appeared, he darted at them, and would have torn

them in pieces. The disease now took on the appearance of acute

glanders; livid and fungous wounds broke out; the stable was saturated

with an infectious smell, the horse refused his food, or was unable to

eat. The mayor at last interfered, and the animal was destroyed. In the

Treatises on The Horse, Cattle, and Sheep, in former volumes, accounts

are fully given of this dreadful malady in these animals. It may not be

uninteresting to give a hasty sketch of it in some of the inferior

classes.

'Rabies in the Rabbit.'--I very much regret that I never instituted a

course of experiments on the production and treatment of rabies in this

animal. It would have been attended with little expense or danger, and

some important discoveries might have been made. Mr. Earle, in a case in

which he was much interested, inoculated two rabbits with the saliva of

a dog that had died rabid. They were punctured at the root of the ears.

One of the rabbits speedily became inflamed about the ears, and the ears

were paralysed in both rabbits. The head swelled very much, and

extensive inflammation took place around the part where the virus was

inserted. One of them died without exhibiting any of the usual symptoms

of the disease; the other, after a long convalescence, survived, and

eventually recovered the use of his ears. Mr. Earle very properly

doubted whether this was a case of rabies.

Dr. Capello describes, but in not so satisfactory a manner as could be

wished, a case of supposed rabies in one of these animals. A rabbit and

a dog lived together in a family. They were strange associates; but such

friendships are not unfrequent among animals. The dog became rabid, and

died. A man bitten by that dog became hydrophobous, and died. No one

dreamed of the rabbit being in danger, and he ran about the house as

usual; but, one day, he found his way to the chamber of the mistress of

the house, with a great deal of viscid saliva running from his mouth,

furiously attacked her, and left the marks of his violence on her leg.

He then ran into a neighbouring stable, and bit the hind-legs of a horse

several times. Finally, he retreated to a corner of the stable, and was

there found dead. Neither the lady nor the horse eventually suffered.

'Rabies in the Guinea-pig'.--A man suspected of being hydrophobous was

taken to the Middlesex Hospital. He was examined before several of the

medical students; one of whom, in order to make more sure of the affair,

inoculated a guinea-pig with the saliva taken from the man's mouth. The

guinea-pig had been usually very playful, and fond of being noticed;

but, on the eleventh day after this inoculation, he began to be dull and

sullen, retiring into his house, and hiding himself as much as he could

in a corner. On the following day he became out of temper, and even

ferocious in his way; he bit at everything that was presented to him,

gnawed his cage, and made the most determined efforts to escape. Once or

twice his violence induced convulsions of his whole frame; and they

might be produced at pleasure by dashing a little water at him. In the

course of the night following he died.

'Rabies in the Cat'.--Fortunately for us, this does not often occur; for

a mad cat is a truly ferocious animal. I have seen two cases, one of

them to my cost; yet, I am unable to give any satisfactory account of

the progress of the disease. The first stage seems to be one of

sullenness, and which would probably last to death; but from that

sullenness it is dangerous to rouse the animal. It probably would not,

except in the paroxysm of rage, attack any one; but during that paroxysm

it knows no fear, nor has its ferocity any bounds.

A cat, that had been the inhabitant of a nursery, and the playmate of

the children, had all at once become sullen and ill-tempered. It had

taken refuge in an upper room, and could not be coaxed from the corner

in which it had crouched. It was nearly dark when I went. I saw the

horrible glare of her eyes, but I could not see so much of her as I

wished, and I said that I would call again in the morning.

I found the patient, on the following day, precisely in the same

situation and the same attitude, crouched up in a corner, and ready to

spring. I was very much interested in the case; and as I wanted to study

the countenance of this demon, for she looked like one, I was foolishly,

inexcusably imprudent. I went on my hands and knees, and brought my face

nearly on a level with hers, and gazed on those glaring eyes, and that

horrible countenance, until I seemed to feel the deathly influence of a

spell stealing over me. I was not afraid, but every mental and bodily

power was in a manner suspended. My countenance, perhaps, alarmed her,

for she sprang on me, fastened herself on my face, and bit through both

my lips. She then darted down stairs, and, I believe, was never seen

again. I always have nitrate of silver in my pocket, even now I am never

without it; I washed myself, and applied the caustic with some severity

to the wound; and my medical adviser and valued friend, Mr. Millington,

punished me still more after I got home. My object was attained,

although at somewhat too much cost, for the expression of that brute's

countenance will never be forgotten.

The later symptoms of rabies in this animal, no one, perhaps, has had

the opportunity of observing: we witness only the sullenness and the

ferocity.

'Rabies in the Fowl'.--Dr. Ashburner and Mr. King inoculated a hen with

the saliva from a rabid cow. They made two incisions through the

integument, under the wings, and then well rubbed into these cuts the

foam taken from the cow's mouth. She was after this let loose among

other fowls in the poultry-yard. The incisions soon healed, and their

places could with difficulty be discovered. Ten weeks passed over, when

she was observed to refuse her food, and to run at the other fowls. She

had a strange wild appearance, and her eyes were blood-shot. Early on

the following morning her legs became contracted, so that she very soon

lost the power of standing upright. She remained sitting a long time,

with the legs rigid, refusing food and water, and appearing very

irritable when touched. She died in the evening, immediately after

drinking a large quantity of water which had been offered to her.

'Rabies in the Badger'.--Hufeland, in his valuable Journal of Practical

Medicine, relates a case of a rabid female badger attacking two boys.

She bit them both, but she fastened on the thigh of one of them, and was

destroyed in the act of sucking his blood. The poor fellow died

hydrophobous, but the other escaped. This fact, certainly, gives us no

idea of the general character of the disease in this animal; but it

speaks volumes as to its ferocity.

'Rabies in the Wolf'.--Rabies is ushered in by nearly the same symptoms,

and pursues the same course in the wolf us in the dog, with this

difference, which would be readily expected, that his ferocity and the

mischief which he accomplishes are much greater. The dog hunts out his

own species, and his fury is principally directed against them;

although, if he meets with a flock of sheep, or a herd of cattle, he

readily attacks them, and, perhaps, bites the greater part of them. The

dog, however, frequently turns out of his way to avoid the human being,

and seldom attacks him without provocation. The wolf, on the contrary,

although he commits fearful ravages among the sheep and cattle, searches

out the human being as his favorite prey. He conceals himself near the

entrance to the village, and steals upon and wounds every passenger that

he can get at. There are several accounts of more than twenty persons

having been bitten by one wolf; and there is a fearful history of

sixteen persons perishing from the bite of one of these animals. This is

in perfect agreement with the account which I have given of the

connexion between the previous temper and habits of the rabid dog, and

the mischief that he effects under the influence of this malady. The

wolf, as he wanders in the forest, regards the human being as his

persecutor and foe; and, in the paroxysm of rabid fury, he is most eager

to avenge himself on his natural enemy. Strange stories are told of the

arts to which he has recourse in order to accomplish his purpose. In the

great majority of cases he steals unawares upon his victim, and the

mischief is effected before the wood-cutter or the villager is conscious

of his danger.

The following observations and experiments respecting rabies, by Dr.

Hertwich, Professor at the Veterinary School at Berlin, are well worthy

of attention.

1. Out of fifty dogs that had been inoculated with virus taken from a

rabid animal of the same species, fourteen only were infected.

2. In the cases where inoculation had been practised without effect, no

reason could be assigned why the disease should not have taken place.

This consequently proves that the malady is similar to others of a

contagious nature, and that there must exist a predisposition in the

individual to receive the disease before it can occur. In one

experiment, a mastiff dog, aged four years, was inoculated without

exhibiting any symptoms of the malady, while seven others, who had been

inoculated at the same time and place, soon became rabid. Several of

these animals had been inoculated several times before any symptoms

showed themselves, while in others, on the contrary, once was

sufficient.

3. It appears that in a state of doubtful rabies, one or two accidental

or artificial inoculations are not sufficient to create a negative proof

of its existence.

4. This disease has never ben communicated to an individual from one

infected by means of the perspirable matter; this, therefore, is a proof

that the contagious part of the disease is not of a volatile nature.

5. It does not only exist in the saliva and the mucus of the mouth, but

likewise in the blood and the parenchyma of the salivary glands; but not

in the pulpy substance of the nerves.

6. The power of communicating infection is found to exist in all stages

of the confirmed disease, even twenty-four hours after the decease of

the rabid animal.

7. The morbid virus, when administered internally, appears to be

incapable of communicating this disease; inasmuch as of twenty dogs to

whom was given a certain quantity, not one exhibited the least symptom

of rabies.

8. The application of the saliva upon recent wounds appears to have been

as often succeeded by confirmed rabies as when the dog had been bitten

by a rabid animal.

9. It cannot now be doubled that the disease is produced by the wound

itself, as was supposed by M. Girard of Lyons, not by the fright of the

individual, according to the opinion of others, but only from the

absorption of the morbid virus from its surface.

10. Several experiments have proved to me the little reliance there is

to be placed on the opinions of Baden and Capello, who believe that, in

those dogs who become rabid after the bite of an animal previously

attacked with this disease, the contagious properties of the saliva is

not continued, but only exists in those primarily bitten.

11. During the period of incubation of the virus there are no morbid,

local, or general alterations of structure or function to be seen in the

infected animal; neither are there any vesicles to be perceived on the

inferior surface of the tongue, nor any previous symptoms which are

found in other contagious diseases.

12. This disease is generally at its height at the end of fifty days

after either artificial or accidental inoculation; and the author has

never known it to manifest itself at a later period.

13. It is quite an erroneous idea to suppose that dogs in a state of

health are enabled to distinguish, at first sight, a rabid animal,

inasmuch as they never refuse their food when mixed with the secretions

of those infected. [3]

The following singular trial respecting the death of a child by

hydrophobia is worth quoting:

'Jones v. Parry.'--The plaintiff is a labourer, who gets only fourteen

shillings a week to support himself and his family. The defendant is his

neighbour, and keeps a public-house. This was an action brought by the

plaintiff to recover damages against the defendant for the loss of his

son, who was bitten by the defendant's dog, and afterwards became

affected with rabies, of which disease he died.

It appeared in the evidence that the defendant's dog had, some time ago,

been bitten by another dog; in consequence of which this dog was tied in

the cellar, but the length of the rope which was allowed him enabled him

to go to a considerable distance. The plaintiff's child knew the dog,

having often played with him when he was at large. Some time ago the

child crossed the street, near to the place where the dog was fastened,

who rushed out of the place in which he was confined to where the child

stood, sprung upon him, and bit him sadly in the face, and afterwards

violently shook him. The child being thus wounded, a surgeon was sent

for, who, after having dressed him, and attended him for a certain time,

gave directions that he should be taken to the sea-side, and bathed in

the salt water.

This having been continued for some time, the child was brought home,

and, at the expiration of a month from the day on which he was bitten,

became evidently and strangely ill. The surgeon proved beyond all

shadow of doubt thai the child laboured under rabies; that he had the

never-failing symptoms of that dreadful affliction; and that a little

while before he expired, he even barked like a dog. The surgeon's charge

to the father for his attendance was'£1. 6s. 6d.', which, together with

the charge of the undertaker for the funeral of the child, amounted to

between six and seven pounds. Application was made to the defendant to

defray this expense, which at first he expressed a willingness to comply

with, but afterwards refused; upon which this action was brought.

After some time the defendant offered to pay the plaintiff the sum of

'£6. 3s. 6d.', and the expense of the funeral and the surgeon, provided

the plaintiff would bear the expenses of the lawsuit, which he was not

in a condition to do, as probably it would amount to more than that

money. On this account, therefore, the action was now brought into

court. There was no proof that the defendant knew or suspected his dog

to be mad, previously to his attacking the boy; but an animal known to

have been bitten by a mad dog, ought either to have been at once

destroyed, or so secured that it was impossible for him to do mischief.

Lord Kenyon observed to the jury, that this was one of those causes

which came home to the feelings of all, yet must not be carried farther

than justice demanded. A cause like this never, perhaps, before occurred

in a court of justice; but there had been many resembling it in point of

principle. If a dog, known to be ill-tempered and vicious, did any

person an injury without provocation, there could be no question that

the owner of the dog was answerable, in a court of justice, for the

injury inflicted. Here was a worse case. The dog by whom the child was

bitten had been attacked by another that was undeniably rabid. His

master was aware of this, and placed him in a state of partial

confinement--a confinement so lax, and so inefficient, that this poor

child had broken through it, and was bitten and died. What other people

would have done in such a situation he could not tell; but, if he were

asked what he would do, he answered, he certainly would kill the dog,

however much of a favourite he had been, because no atonement was within

the reach of his fortune to make to the injured party for such a

dreadful visitation of Providence as this. It was not enough for the

owner of such a dog to say, he took precaution to prevent mischief: he

ought to have made it impossible that mischief could happen; and,

therefore, as soon as there was any reasonable suspicion that the dog

was rabid, he ought to have destroyed him.

But, if the owner wished to save the animal, until he was satisfied of

the actual state of the case, he ought to have secured him, so that

every individual might be safe. Whether the defendant thought he had

done all that was necessary, his lordship did not know; but this he

knew, that the dog was not perfectly secured, otherwise this misfortune

could not have happened.

The care which the defendant took in this case was not enough, and,

therefore, he had no doubt that this action was maintainable. The jury

would judge what damages they ought to give. He would refer this to

their feelings. They could not avoid commiserating the distress of the

family of this poor man. He should, however, observe to the jury, that

they must not give vindictive damages; but still he did not think that

damages merely to the amount of '£6'. or '£7'., which was stated to be

the expense of the funeral, &c., would at all meet the justice of the

case. He was inclined to advise them to go beyond that, although he did

not plead vindictive damages. There would be costs to be defrayed by the

plaintiff, well known in the profession under the head of "extra costs,"

even although he had a verdict. If the verdict had been at his disposal,

he would have taken care that these costs should have been borne by the

party that had been the cause of the injury. That appeared to him to be

the justice of the case.

He trusted that none who heard him would doubt his sincerity, when he

said, he lamented the misfortune which had given birth to this action;

and, with that qualification of the case, he must say that he was not

sorry that this action had been brought. He thanked the plaintiff for

bringing it; for it might be of public benefit. It would teach a lesson

that would not soon be forgotten, "That a person, who knowingly keeps a

vicious, dangerous animal, should be considered to be answerable for all

the acts of that animal." There were instances in which very large

damages had been given to repair such injuries. He did not say that the

present case called for large damages; but, if other cases of the same

kind should be brought into court after this had been made public, he

hoped the jury would go beyond the ordinary limits, and give verdicts

which might operate 'in terrorem' on the offending parties.

Verdict for the plaintiff--damages £36. [4]

A child was bitten by a rabid dog at York, and became hydrophobous. All

possibility of relief having vanished, the parents, desirous of putting

an end to the agony of their child, or fearful of its doing mischief,

smothered it between two pillows. They were tried for murder, and found

guilty. They were afterwards pardoned; but the intention of the

prosecutor was that of deterring others from a similar practice, in a

like unfortunate situation [5].

In 1821, a physician, at Poissy, was sentenced to pay 8000 francs (£320)

to a poor widow whose husband died of hydrophobia, in consequence of a

bite from the physician's dog, he knowing that the dog had been bitten,

yet not confining him.

[Our author having written so extensively upon the subject of rabies, it

would seem superfluous in us to attempt to add anything more upon a

subject so ably and practically handled by one having so great

opportunities to make personal observations. However, to allay the

feelings of many of our dogkilling citizens, we will not hesitate to

assert that we do not place as much credence in the frequency of rabies

as is generally done; but, on the other hand, are strongly led to

believe that the accounts of this much-dreaded malady are greatly

exaggerated both in this country and in England.

That there may be a few cases of rabies in our country in the course of

a year, we do not doubt; but, at the same time, we are satisfied that

the affection in its genuine form is quite rare, and that the great hue

and cry made every season about mad dogs, is more the result of

ignorance and fright than of reality.

Our limits in this publication would not allow us sufficient space to

enlarge upon the many pathological questions naturally arising from a

minute examination of this subject, more particularly as our views are

somewhat at variance with the generally received opinion, and which, of

course, we would be forced to express with considerable diffidence,

owing to the impossibility of collecting such evidence as might seem

necessary to substantiate any peculiar doctrine.

That tetanus, hysteria, and other spasmodic affections have often been

mistaken for rabies, there is no doubt, and we can easily imagine the

mental effect produced upon an individual of a highly nervous

temperament, by the knowledge of his being bitten by an animal known to

be hydrophobic; and we can, without difficulty, reconcile with our best

judgment the belief 'that the workings of such an individual's

imagination, occasioned by the never-ceasing dread of the horrid malady

to which he is now exposed, might be sufficient to produce a train of

symptoms somewhat resembling the actual state of rabies.'

For the benefit of these nervous unfortunates, we might say to them,

that the statistics of this affection show a very considerable ratio in

favour of escape from inoculation when bitten, or of entire recovery

even after the development of the disease, and that there are many

other ills in the catalogue of medicine that they should take equal

pains to provide against as lyssa canina. We doubt not that the minds of

many will be relieved, when informed that John Hunter mentions an

instance, in which, out of twenty persons bitten by a rabid dog, only

one suffered from the malady; and that of fifty-nine dogs inoculated by

Professor Hertwick at the veterinary school of Berlin, only fourteen

were affected; and of eleven patients entrusted to the care of M. Blaise

of Cluny, seven recovered after exhibiting greater or less degrees of

spasmodic symptoms.

It may prove interesting to our readers, to insert in these pages an

account of the first two cases of rabies known in Philadelphia, and as

related to us by a venerable and much-esteemed citizen, who is well

known in the scientific world as a gentleman of deep research, and we

agree with him in opinion, that this much-dreaded disease is most

frequently the result of like causes, or rather that like symptoms often

induce the belief of the presence of this malady, when, in fact, no such

disease does exist.

Towards the close of the last century, there lived a tailor in Front

street, near Market, in the midst of the most respectable people of that

period; among the number was our esteemed friend Mr. Hembel, as also

Judge Tilghman. This tailor possessed an ill-tempered little spaniel,

who, lounging about the street-door, attacked every one that passed by,

snapping and snarling in the most worrisome manner, more particularly at

every little urchin that invaded his "right of pavement," and not

unfrequently biting them or tearing their clothes from their back. The

owner of the dog was appealed to on many occasions by the neighbours,

begging that the quarrelsome brute should either be disposed of or kept

within doors. To all these solicitations and warnings the little tailor

paid no heed, but continued stitching his breeches and cribbing his

customers' goods, while the ugly little spaniel, without interruption,

amused himself by snapping at and biting the heels of the passers-by.

The nuisance at last became insufferable, and Judge Tilghman applied to

Mr. Hembel to assist him in getting rid of this troublesome brute; the

latter gentleman advised the administration of a small quantity of

strychnia, concealed in a portion of meat, which proposition was agreed

upon and immediately carried into execution. A short time after the

administering of this dose the spaniel sickened, and retired from his

post to the kitchen, which was in the basement, and where an Irish

domestic was engaged in washing; the dog appeared uneasy for a time, and

suddenly, being taken with the involuntary muscular convulsions that

so frequently follow the administration of this powerful drug, ran

around the kitchen yelping and howling at a most terrible rate, and

ultimately, to the no small discomfiture and amazement of the maid,

sprang up into the wash-tub, at which unceremonious caper, on the part

of the dog, the woman became greatly alarmed and ran out into the

street, followed by the whole household, crying mad dog, which soon

produced an uproar in the neighbourhood, no one daring to satisfy

himself as to the correctness of the report, and all, perhaps, too

ignorant of the subject to discern the real cause of the animal's

singular behaviour. The tailor, still bearing a strong attachment to his

unfortunate favourite, and being somewhat more daring than his

neighbours, ventured, at length, to peep into the kitchen to see the

state of affairs, and seeing the dog still convulsed and foaming at the

mouth, was more than ever confirmed in the belief of hydrophobia, and

knowing full well the biting propensities of the animal, independent of

rabies, concluded, much to the relief of every one, to shoot him. The

next step in the programme was the dragging out and consigning of the

patient to a watery grave, which was accomplished by placing, with a

pair of tongs, a noose over the head of the animal, and thus hauling him

out of the basement window amid the cheers of the assembled populace who

soon cast him into the Delaware.

The second case of rabies as related to us by Mr. Hembel was as

follows:--In 1793 the barbers of the city were in the habit of going

around to the various boarding-houses for the purpose of shaving the

visitors in their apartments, instead of accommodating them, as at the

present time, in their own establishments.

One of these knights of the razor, living also in Front street, when

going to and from a fashionable boarding-house in the vicinity, was not

unfrequently assailed by a small cur who often took him by the heels

when hurrying along.

To get rid of this annoying little animal as speedily and secretly as

possible, he had recourse to the powers of strychnia, which produced in

a very short time similar effects upon the poor victim, and the result

was another great hue and cry about mad dogs.

These authentic and remarkable cases of hydrophobia were heralded in all

the papers of the day, which, from that time forward, were filled with

notes of caution to all dog-owners.

Of the 'treatment' of rabies we will make but a few remarks, as of the

immense number of specifics proposed for this disease, amounting in all

to several hundred, few or none can be relied on to the exclusion of the

others; but those medicines, perhaps, known as opiates or

anti-spasmodics, claim a larger share of attention than any others in

combating the disease after its development. In looking over the very

original works of Jacques Du Fouilloux, a worthy cynegetical writer of

the sixteenth century, we find a prescription that was supposed by many

to be an infallible specific for this disease, and as it appears to us

quite as certain in its effects on the animal economy as many others of

the inert substances that have been lauded to the skies both in our

country and in other parts of the world as antidotes, we take the

liberty of transcribing it, as also of adding a translation of his

quaint French.

'Autre recepte par mots preservants la rage.'

'Ay appris vne recepte d'vn Gentil-homme, en Bretaigne, lequel faisoit

de petits escriteaux, où n'y auoit seulement que deux lignes, lesquels

il mettoit en vne omellette d'oeufs, puis les faisoit aualer aux chiens

qui auorient esté mords de chiens enragez, et auoit dedans l'escriteau,

'Y Ran Quiran Cafram Cafratrem, Cafratrosque'. Lesquels mots disoit

estre singuliers pour empescher les chiens de la rage, mais quant à moi

ie n'y adiouste pas foy.

I have learned a recipe from a nobleman of Brittany, which is composed

of a written charm, in which there are only two lines; these he put in

an omelet of eggs, he then made the dogs that had been bitten by a rabid

animal swallow them. There was on the paper "'Y Ran Quiran Cafram

Cafratrem, Cafratrosque'". These words were said to be singularly

efficacious in preventing madness in dogs, but for my part I do not

credit it.

Although our quaint author considered the above charm even too

marvellous for his belief, we give below his own prescription in which

he placed implicit confidence, but, no doubt, on trial it would prove

'"as singularly efficacious" as the other'.

Baing pour lauer, les chiens, quand ils ont esté mords des chiens

enragez, de peur qu'ils enragent.

Quand les chiens sont mords ou desbrayez de chiens enragez, il faut

incontinent emplir vne pippe d'eau, puis prendre quatre boisseaux de sel

et les ietter dedans, en meslaut fort le sel auec vn baston pour le

faire fondre soudainement: et quand il sera fondu, faut mettre le chien

dedans, et le plonger tout, sans qu'il paroisse rien, par neuf fois:

puis quand il sera bien laué, faut le laisser aller, celà l'empeschera

d'enrager.

When a dog has been bitten or scratched by another affected with

madness, we must immediately take a tub of water and throw into it four

bushels of salt, stirring it briskly with a stick to make it dissolve

quickly. When the salt shall be dissolved, put the dog into the bath,

and plunge him well nine times, so that the bath shall cover him each

time; now that he is well washed you may let him go, as this will

prevent his becoming rabid.

Having given publicity to the two preceding valuable receipts, we must

be pardoned for adding our own views upon this point, as a caution to

those who may not feel sufficient faith in the remedies above mentioned.

The wound should be thoroughly washed and cleansed as soon as possible

after the bite is inflicted: no sucking of the parts, as is advised by

many, for the purpose of extracting the poison, as the presence of a

small abrasion of the lips or interior of the mouth would most assuredly

subject the parts to inoculation. If the wound be ragged, the edges may

be taken off with a pair of sharp scissors; the wound must then be

thoroughly cauterized with nitrate of silver (lunar caustic), being sure

to introduce the caustic into the very depths of the wound, so that it

will reach every particle of poison that may have insinuated itself into

the flesh. If the wound is too small to admit of the stick of caustic,

it may be enlarged by the knife, taking care, however, not to carry the

poison into the fresh cut, which can be avoided by wiping the knife at

each incision. Should the wound be made on any of the limbs, a bandage

may be placed around it during the application of these remedies, the

more effectually to prevent the absorption of the virus. Nitrate of

silver is a most powerful neutralizer of specific poisons, and the

affected parts will soon come away with the slough, no dressings being

necessary, except perhaps olive oil, if there should be much

inflammation of the parts. If the above plan be pursued, the patient

need be under no apprehension as to the result, but make his mind

perfectly easy on the point. This is the course generally pursued by the

veterinary surgeons of Europe, and there are but few of them who have not,

some time in their practice, been bitten and often severely lacerated by

rabid animals; nevertheless, we never hear of their having suffered any

bad effects from such accidents. If caustic be not at hand, the wound

may be seared over with red-hot iron, which will answer as good a

purpose, although much more painful in its operation. Mr. Blaine, in

closing his able and scientific article on this subject, very justly

remarks,

"Would I could instil into such minds the 'uncertainty' of the disease

appearing at all; that is, even when no means have been used; and the

'perfect security' they may feel who have submitted to the preventive

treatment detailed. I have been bitten several times, Mr. Youatt

several also; yet in neither of us was any dread occasioned: our

experience taught us the 'absolute certainty' of the 'preventive'

means; and such I take on me to pronounce they always prove, when

performed with dexterity and judgment." We acknowledge ourselves a

convert to this gentleman's doctrine; and feel satisfied that if the

above course be adopted, there need be no fear whatever of the

development of this frightful affection.--L.]

[Footnote 1: 'La Folie des Animaux', by M. Perquin.]

[Footnote 2: The physician Apollonius, having been bitten by a rabid

dog, induced another dog to lick the wound,

"ut idem medicus esset qui vulneris auctor fuit."]

[Footnote 3: 'Journal Pratique de Méd. Vét.']

[Footnote 4: 'Sporting Magazine', vol. xviii. p. 186.]

[Footnote 5: Daniel's 'Rural Sports', vol. i. p. 220.]

* * * * *