No. «. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. Ill 



try and to bile auimals and jjorsons. it liai)pens that tho chief factor 

 in tlie spread of rabies is the bite of rabid doj^s. When one sees as, 

 unfortunately, there have been sucli frequent opportunities in Penn- 

 sylvania to see, a large number of animals bitten by a dog that pos- 

 sessed an apparently uncontrollable desire to bite, whose whole 

 habit and demeanor had undergone a sudden chjuige, and who died 

 of a general paralysis within a week of the beginning of the abnor- 

 mal condition, and when subsequent investigation shows that a 

 large proportion, sometimes even from 75 per cent, to 100 i)er cent, 

 of the animals bitten, develop symptoms and tendencies similar 

 to those shown by the dog by which they were bitten, it can not be 

 doubted that there is a very real and a very dangerous disease. It 

 may be shown by further investigation that it is of wide distribution 

 and that it causes very great losses in Pennsylvania. 



The chief difficulty that has occurred in connection with enforce- 

 ment of procedures directed against rabies, has come from the lack 

 of public sympathy and support. It is on this account that it has 

 everywhere, in foreign countries and in other states as well as in 

 Pennsylvania, been difficult, event to the point of impossibility, to 

 enforce adequate measures of protection against this disease. 

 When, after rabies had prevailed extensively in Great Britain for 

 a long series of years, it was proposed that the only effective general 

 measure that is known, should be placed in operation and that, for 

 a time, all dogs should be muzzled, the procedure was met by a 

 storm of protest and opposition that threatened to cause the disor- 

 ganization of the British Board of Agriculture. But, the measure 

 was adopted and it was enforced. It was required that all dogs 

 should be muzzled, that no dogs should be admitted to the coun- 

 try without a proper certificate of health, and without undergo- 

 ing a term of quarantine. By these means rabies has been com- 

 pletely exterminated in England, and for two years not a case of 

 rabies has occurred in that country. Similar measures have been 

 used and similar results have been obtained in Scandinavian coun- 

 tries and in parts of Germany. The countries of continental Europe 

 are generally unfavorably situated in respect to the eradication of 

 rabies and as they have not succeeded in arranging to co-operate 

 in the eradication of this disease, it happens that countries such 

 as Germany where active repressive measures are in operation and, 

 generally, are successful, are still infested, from time to time, by 

 the entrance of rabid animals from across the frontier. Similarly, 

 one of the American states is not in position to eradicate rabies so 

 long as it is surrounded by states that do not adopt equally effective 

 measures. i ' I 



If all the dogs in Pennsylvania were quarantined and muzzled 

 for six months, and if no dogs were permitted to r-ross the wState 



