226 Hydrophobia occurring in Foxes. 



Art. XI. Remarks on Hydrophobia occurring among the Foxes, in 

 Germany, especially in the Kingdom of Wurtemberg. By W. 

 Weissenborn, D. Ph. 



Since 1833, there has been observed among the foxes all over 

 Germany, as well as the neighbouring countries, different 

 symptoms of disease, which have a tendency to degenerate 

 into hydrophobia, so as to make the latter disorder assume 

 an epidemic character. It is curious that these phenomena 

 nearly coincide with the appearance of the cholera, and con- 

 sidering that the liver appears to be the primary seat of the 

 disease, it is perhaps not too speculative to suppose that the 

 peculiar unhealthy state of the foxes, owes its origin to the 

 same telluric and atmospheric influences, which predispose 

 the human organism for the cholera. However, unsupported 

 as this opinion stands by a closer investigation of the subject, 

 I should not have ventured upon emitting it, were the Etiolo- 

 gy given by writers on the subject, or the opinions of foresters, 

 whom I have consulted, at all calculated to throw much light 

 on the question. Most of them adduce the scarcity of mice ; 

 and indeed the faces of the foxes were found in several dis- 

 tricts, where the disease prevailed to a high degree, to be 

 mostly composed of the remains of cockchafers, &c. But 

 here, no doubt, a symptom is mistaken for the cause, as the 

 fox is probably compelled, by a depraved appetite, or the 

 weakness to which it is reduced, to subsist chiefly on a de- 

 scription of food, which in general forms only a supplemen- 

 tary part of its diet. Quitting this speculative part of the 

 subject, I shall now first communicate a few observations, 

 which were made in the principality of Saxe-Eisenach, about 

 the time when the disease first appeared, and then report on 

 its present state in the kingdom of Wurtemberg ; observing 

 that during the intermediate period, the foxes seem to have 

 been throughout affected with the same ailment, more or less, 

 over all Germany and Switzerland, the disease appearing in 

 one district, when it had ceased in another.* 



* I may here mention a little work, which was published in 1835, at Zu- 

 rich; "Ueber die in unsern Zeiten unter den Fiichsen herrschende Kran- 

 kheit" (On the disease prevalent amongthe foxes in our time), by Dr. Joh. 

 Rud, Koechlin, in which the author draws the following conclusions : 

 1 . The disease is a peculiar kind of typhus, to which, in its primary state, 

 probably only the canine species are subject, but which may be communi- 

 cated to man, and other animals, by means of contagion. 2. This typhus, 

 in its different stages, as well as in different individuals, presents more or 

 less numerous and different phenomena, both during life and after death. 

 3. It is often accompanied by that rabid delirium or typhomania, which 

 impels the animal to bite. 4. The animal affected with it often dies, or is 

 killed, before the disorder has become contagious, or completed its deve- 



