338 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



We shall never understand the nature of beauty 

 so long as we attack our problem from the wrong 

 side. As in every other department of knowl- 

 edge, so in aesthetics, we must be content to 



begin at the beginning, and then we may, per- 

 haps, have fair hopes of some day reaching the 

 end. 



— Comhill Magazine. 



DOG-POISON IN MAN. 



By HENRY W. ACLAND, M. D. 



PERIODICAL literature has developed one 

 great change in modern life, and there is no 

 subject too technical, none too professional, to 

 be brought before the general reader. As re- 

 gards medical questions, the great surgeon, Bro- 

 die, and the Nestor of English medicine, Sir 

 Thomas Watson, led the way. 



The subject of the present paper, that of the 

 mode of working in man of poison from a mad 

 dog, has one advantage, that it well illustrates 

 the importance of viewing biological studies as a 

 whole, and shows that human and comparative 

 pathology are inseparable. 



Let us consider what hydrophobia is, and how 

 it comes to exist : 1. now it acts. 2. How it is 

 spread. 3. How it is to be prevented. 



We must look at these from a general rather 

 than from a medical point of view. 



Hydrophobia, as all know, is the result of an 

 animal poison operating on man. What does 

 this mean ? What are animal poisons ? Whence 

 do they come? How do they operate? 



The subject of animal poisons is one of strange 

 — nay, of fascinating interest. It is so extensive 

 that, if pursued in detail, it would wholly exhaust 

 the patience of any that had not a special pur- 

 pose in following it through its manifold partic- 

 ulars. Some idea of it, however, may be easily 

 gained. 



We are each of us constructed on a definite 

 plan, the outcome of we know not how many 

 myriads of ages operating under definite condi- 

 tions by regular laws. We have a certain form 

 which varies according to the race from which 

 we spring. We are composed of matter much 

 the same in every human being, and little vary- 

 ing in all animal life endued with the higher kinds 

 of consciousness. The fish, the reptile, the bird, 

 the gentle quadruped that culls the living herb, 

 the fierce brute that spreads terror and death, 

 whether for sustenance or delight, all have a 

 structural kinship with ourselves. We are but a 

 part of a vast army of living things, living in the 



warmth of one life-sustaining fire, breathing the 

 same air, imbibing the same moisture, obeying 

 the same physical attractions, building in and in 

 the same chemical elements, growing a kindred 

 growth, deploying for a time the same animal 

 forces, dying the same death, disintegrated by the 

 same physical decomposition, returning to the 

 same air, and water, and dust. 



How strange, then, that this family, so knit 

 up, should find in itself members whose function 

 should seem to be that of bringing instant de- 

 struction to those about them, for no purpose 

 that we can see — neither for self-defense nor for 

 self-maintenance by way of food ! It is as though 

 there were set in the eternal order of things, 

 somewhere in the animal series, a terrible mate- 

 rial contrast with the heavenward aspirations of 

 the soul of man. 



Poisons, no doubt, surround us. We have 

 heard enough of late of poisoning air, poisoning 

 water, poisoning food, poisoning soil. The mar- 

 vel is, that animals exist who themselves generate 

 them for the sake of poisoning. 



Since much of the poison which surrounds us 

 is created by ourselves, Ls origin may be to a 

 great extent prevented by ourselves. But the 

 growth of some poisons is beyond control, ex- 

 cept by the destruction of the grower ; for in- 

 stance, the poison of snakes. This is the sim- 

 plest case of an animal communicable poison. No 

 manner of life, nor self-discipline, could hinder the 

 snake from manufacturing his deadly dynamite, 

 or from using it when manufactured. 



How, then, does this typical animal poison act 

 so as to produce its terrible results ? " Snake- 

 poison," says Sir Joseph Fayrer, " is essentially 

 a neurotic ; and, when it takes full effect, kills 

 by annihilating the source of nerve-force in ways 

 which bid fair to be elucidated by modern inves- 

 tigation." 



To illustrate this, I quote from that scientific 

 surgeon and accomplished physiological inquirer 

 the following typical case : 



