174 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



SOME SUPERSTITIONS OF HYDROPHOBIA. 



Br CHAELES P. EUSSELL, M. D. 



THE reign of Sirius is over, and the dread of hydrophobia has 

 ceased to agitate the public mind. At this auspicious season 

 of the year we may approach the subject with cool premeditation, and 

 deal with it in our own way. No longer do we regard our canine 

 associates with a sort of indefinable apprehension. Our Spitz " Prince " 

 pursues with savage intent the obnoxious house-fly, without exciting 

 any suspicion of "snapping at imaginary objects in the air." His 

 appetite is capricious, and we merely sympathize with him as a fellow- 

 sufterer from dyspepsia. He bites a part where crawls the occult flea, 

 without having to undergo a critical examination for a " point of in- 

 jury." He retires in dim seclusion under the sofa, and indulges in 

 reverie disagreeable reminiscences of the past, grim contemplations 

 of the present, and perhaps gloomy anticipations of the future with- 

 out having his moroseness misinterpreted. He becomes uneasy and 

 fidgety, even peevish and ugly at times what then ? like master 

 like dog, he serves to illustrate our human moods. Occasionally he 

 displays toward us an exaggerated degree of affection almost unac- 

 countable in any Prince of mature age ; but this is in the early morn- 

 ing, and the odor of his favorite liver ascends from the kitchen ; even 

 his blandishments, alas ! are sometimes selfish. He is now permitted 

 to run through the street without a muzzle, and to consort with the 

 61 ttoIXol " the great unwashed " of his tribe ; which affiliation he 

 thoroughly enjoys, albeit a dog of most aristocratic pedigree remem- 

 bering, possibly, that both his descent and theirs are by many natu- 

 ralists derived from a common and somewhat disreputable ancestor 

 named Wolf. In fact, the dog-days being past, his follies, his faults, all 

 his vagaries, seem natural as ever. How is it, we now ask ourselves, 

 that this faithful servant and friend should have been under such a cloud 

 during all the bright summer? Why, as Mr. Mayo has remarked, 

 should he be regarded at that particular season as being subject to " a 

 sort of dog-lunacy, having the same relation to Sirius that insanity has 

 to the moon which, indeed, in another sense, is probably true ? " 

 The answer may be found in that peculiarity of human nature which 

 clings fast to traditions and superstitions, and will most probably 

 always do so until man ceases to be human. It is the province of sci- 

 ence, however, to battle with these familiar foes, and to at least sur- 

 round with invincible lines the almost impregnable positions in which 

 Time has intrenched them among the credulous and ignorant. 



The mysterious influence of the " dog-days " upon the canine race 

 is an opinion of the greatest antiquity, dating back apparently to An- 

 nubis, the dog-form of the Egyptian Apollo, whose appearance in the 



