SOME SUPERSTITIONS OF HYDROPHOBIA. 177 



in the very country where it was most in vogue. A rabid dog, near the 

 village of Trieglitz, Prussia, bit a shepherd's dog, which was shortly 

 afterward seized with rabies, and in turn communicated it to several 

 cows. Both of these dogs were proved, by authentic certificates, to 

 have undergone, when pups, the prescribed operation. The sanitary 

 physicians of the district assembled to investigate the subject, and 

 numerous instances were brought to their notice of hydrophobia hav- 

 ing been imparted to both animals and men by dogs whose Tollwurms 

 had been extirpated in the most approved manner. These facts led to 

 the suppression of the corps of operators. Subsequently the authori- 

 ties of the province of Detmold convoked a similar commission of in- 

 vestigation, the result of whose inquiries fully confirmed the conclu- 

 sions previously reached. 



This idea never obtained much credence among the English. Dr. 

 Samuel Johnson spoke of the reputed worm in his expressive man- 

 ner as " a substance nobody knows what, extracted nobody knows 

 why." 



According to a report of Dr. Armand to the Paris Academy of 

 Sciences, the same practice still exists in Thrace, and it is described 

 by Auzias Turenne, in the " Receuil de Medecine" for 1869, as then 

 prevailing in Turkey and Moldo-Wallachia. Fleming states that it 

 is quite common in Roumania, and Ramon de Sagra alludes to it as 

 being popular in Spain. It prevails to some extent in our own coun- 

 try, especially in the South. 



Columella, a contemporary of Pliny, in a work entitled " De Re 

 Rustica," informs us that in his time it was believed among shepherds 

 that, if, on the fortieth day after a pup's birth, the last bone of the 

 tail be bitten off, the sinew will follow with it ; after which the tail 

 will cease growing, and the animal will remain secure from madness. 

 This brutal mutilation is still sometimes practised by dog-fanciers, 

 particularly in England, where the Royal Society for the Prevention 

 of Cruelty to Animals have obtained several convictions against those 

 resorting to it. 



The ancients ascribed peculiar virtues to a variety of stone called 

 ammonis cornu, which was supposed to possess the property of ex- 

 tracting the virus from wounds inflicted by mad dogs or venomous 

 reptiles. Pliny alludes to it under the above name, and it has since 

 received the appellation ammonite, both terms referring to its resem- 

 blance in shape to the horns which surrounded the head of Jupiter 

 Ammon. It has also, in more modern times, been popularly known 

 as the mad-stone and the snake-stone. Scientifically speaking, it is 

 the fossil petrifaction of an extinct mollusk closely resembling the 

 nautilus, having a spiral, symmetrical, and chambered shell, varying 

 in size from that of a small bean to that of a large cart-wheel. In the 

 East Indies and China it has for ages enjoyed the reputation men- 

 tioned. 



VOL. TI. 12 



