HYDROPHOBIA IN BAJA CALIFORNIA. 251 



been seized with hydrophobia. Two months before he had been 

 bitten on the great toe by a skunk as he lay asleep in his house at 

 Agua Caliente, but had shown no symptoms of the disease until that 

 day, when he suddenly began to bite at the door jamb in the store 

 at Miraflores. They put him into the brick jail, where he soon be- 

 came very violent. When I went down to the jail the next morning 

 I found a group of Mexicans about the huge wooden door, which was 

 chained fast and tied with riatas in addition. From the inside there 

 came a succession of thumps and blood-curdling groans and strangles. 

 I peered in through the barred window, and saw the unfortunate man 

 lying on his back in a corner, spasmodically kicking out his legs from 

 his chest and rolling his dilated eyes. Suddenly he leaped to his feet 

 and, grasping the iron bars, shook the great door violently, chained 

 and tied as it was. Then he seemed to leap against the walls, and at 

 last fell down, groaning. He soon became rational again, and began 

 to talk through a crack in the door to an old man whom I took to be 

 his father. He asked for water, but they would not give him any, and 

 while he was pleading for a knife or pistol another spasm seized him. 



Presently the judge came over with two policemen. They said 

 they were going to take the rahioso out and tie him to a tree, because 

 he was getting the jail too dirty, and might not die for a week. As 

 soon as the spasm passed, and the man lay weak and moaning, the 

 burly policemen loosed the riatas, and, stepping in quickly, seized 

 him from behind. He protested pathetically against going into the 

 hot sunshine, but they pushed him out and started toward the corral 

 to tie him up. But when the fierce sun struck him he was racked by 

 horrible convulsions. He kicked and struggled, bit at his shoulders, 

 and blew spittle into the air when he threw his head back. The 

 policemen breathed hard, and the old man, his father, hugged himself 

 in agony as he walked behind. There was a desperate struggle, then, 

 with a final paroxysm, the rahioso suddenly collapsed and hung limp 

 in their arms. At first they thought that he was dead, but when he 

 showed signs of life they carried him to the corral and tied him to a 

 tree before he became conscious. Two days later he died. 



Pasteur himself does not undertake to cure patients who have been 

 seized with spasms; but the judge told me that, fifteen years before, 

 an Italian doctor had come through their country making marvelous 

 cures. When he arrived at Miraflores there was a inhioso in the 

 jail who was so badly afiiicted and so long-lived that the judge had 

 ordered him to be shot. When the Italian doctor heard this, how- 

 ever, he asked permission to try an experiment on the man. This 

 being granted, he had the patient lassoed, dragged to the river, and 

 held under water until he was apparently drowned. After the 

 rahioso was full of water, the doctor rolled him on a barrel and re- 



