DOG-POISON IN MAN. 



341 



ployed 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 en- 

 deavors to escape, and, when he found that he 

 coidd 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 de- 

 struction. 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 

 fally as many dogs. He was seen to steal treach- 

 erously upon some of his victims, and inflict the 

 fatal wound. Sometimes he seeks the more dis- 

 tant 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." * 



How subtilely and by what small change of 

 circumstance results maybe altered, the following 

 will show : 



" There is a beautiful species of dog, often the 

 inhabitant of the gentleman's stable — the Dalma- 

 tian or coach dog. He has, perhaps, less affection 

 for the numan species than any other dog, except 

 the greyhound and the bull-dog ; he has less sa- 

 gacity 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 excur- 

 sions 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 on the dog, and the dog licks 



» Youatt, " The Dog," pp. 140, 141. 



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." l 



Many cases of detailed history might be quoted 

 from the vast literature of this subject — a litera- 

 ture, the extent of which, from Aristotle to Sir 

 Thomas Watson, would surprise many. I would 

 refer the reader to Youatt's charming book on 

 the dog, and to the admirable and exhaustive 

 writings of Fleming, the industrious advocate of 

 the study of Comparative Pathology, whence I 

 will give two passages that will show the havoc 

 which may be caused, and how it is caused. And* 

 first, by one dog : 



" If the mad dog is not confined in a cage, but 

 kept in a room where there is more liberty, it wan- 

 ders about in every direction, and with all the 

 greater agitation — if not accustomed to be separated 

 from its human companions. It is continually on 

 the move, and rambles, seeks, smells, howls at the 

 walls, flies at the phantoms that seem to pursue it, 

 gnaws at the bottoms of doors, and furniture, and 

 may at last make an escape through glass doors or 

 windows. If persons are only separated from it 

 by glass it does not hesitate to smash the fragile 

 barrier: being all the more determined to get 

 through it when excited by seeing them, and moved 

 by the fatal desire to bite, which now entirely dom- 

 inates it. The larger the obstacles the wilder its 

 fury, and no sacrifice is too great to obtain liberty. 

 House-dogs are trying every moment to escape from 

 their dwelling ; and those which are kept tied up 

 or shut in a room are constantly endeavoring to 

 break their attachment, or to destroy the doors or 

 partitions that confine them, in order to satisfy their 

 longing to be at large. 



" "When a rabid dog makes its escape it goes 

 freely forward, as if impelled by some irresistible 

 force — traveling considerable distances in a short 

 time, and attacking every living being it meets on 

 its way ; preferring dogs, however, to other ani- 

 mals, and the latter rather than mankind. Cats 

 also appear to be, next to dogs, most liable to be 

 injured. A mad dog that had done a considerable 

 amount of mischief in Lancashire, in 1869, was 

 seen, in one part of its career, trotting along the 

 road with a cat in its mouth, which it had picked 

 up from a cottage, and which, some time afterward, 

 it dropped to attack a cow. Fowls, likewise, are 

 particularly exposed to the assaults of the rabid 

 dog. When it attacks, and endeavors to tear its 

 victims, it does so in silence, never uttering a snarl 

 or a cry of anger ; and, should it chance to be injured 

 in return, it emits no cry or yell of pain. Though 

 it will not so readily assault mankind as it will 



1 Yonatt, " The Dog, 1 " p. 134. 



