226 NORTH AMERICAN MUSTELID.E 



a few cases only will be given best fitted to show the peculiarities of the 

 malady; and those are preferred that are located on the almost uaiuhabited 

 plains of western Kansas, because there the mephitic weasels would be 

 least liable to be inoculated with canine virus. 



"A veteran hunter, Nathaniel Douglas, was hunting buffiilo, in June, 1872, 

 fourteen miles north of Park's Fort. While asleep he was bitten on the 

 thumb by a skunk. Fourteen days afterward singular sensations caused 

 him to seek .medical advice. But it was too late, and after convulsions 

 lasting for ten hours he died. This case is reported by an eye-witness, Mr. 

 E. S. Love, of Wyandorte, Kansas, who also gives several similar accounts. 



" Oue of the men employed by H. P. Wilson, Esq., of Hayes City, Kansas, 

 was bitten by a skunk at night, while herding cattle on the plains. About ten 

 days afterward he was seized with delirium and fearful convulsions, which fol- 

 lowed each other until death brought relief. Mr. Wilson also reports other 

 cases, one of whichTs very "rieceut. In the summer of 1873, a Swedish girl 

 was bitten by a skunk while going to a neighbor's house. As the wound 

 was slight and readily cured, the affair was hardly thought worthy of re- 

 membrance. But on Jan. 24th, 1874, the virus, which had been latent for 

 five months, asserted its powder. She was seized with terrible paroxysms. 

 Large doses of morphine were administered, which ended both her agony 

 an d her life. 



""In October, 1871, a hunter on Walnut Creek, Kansas, was awakened by 

 having his left ear bitten by some animal. Seizing it with his hand, he found 

 it to be a skunk, which after a struggle he killed, but not until his hand 

 was painfully punctured and lacerated. He presented himself for treatment 

 to Dr. J. H. Janeway, army surgeon at Fort Hayes, from whom I have the 

 facts. The wounds in the hands were cauterized, much to the man's dis- 

 gust, who thought simple dressing sufficient. He refused to have the wound 

 in the ear touched, and went to Fort Harker to consult Dr. R. C. Brewer. 

 Twelve days afterward the latter reported that his patient had died with 

 hydrophobic symptoms. 



"Another hunter, in the fall of 1872, applied to Dr. Janeway to be treated 

 for a bite through one of the alas of the nose. He had been attacked by a 

 skunk, while in camp on the Smoky River, two nights previous. He had 

 been imbibing stimulants freely and was highly excited and nervous. A 

 stick of nitrate of silver was passed through the wound several times. He 

 was kept under treatment for two days, when he left to have a * madstoue ' 

 applied. He afterward went home to his ranch, and diedin convulsions 

 twenty-one days from the time he was inoculated. ^ ~ "■"' ' 



♦* I give but one more of the cases reported to me by Dr. Janeway. In 

 October, 1871, he was called to see a young man living in a * dug-out,' a few 

 miles from the fort. He had been bitten by a skunk, seventeen days previ- 

 ous, in the little finger of the left hand. His face was flushed, and he com- 

 plained that his throat seemed to be turning into bone. On hearing the 

 sound of water poured from a pail into a tin cup, he went into convulsions, 

 that followed each other with rapidity and violence for sixteen hours, ter- 

 minating in death. This man's dog had also been bitten, and it was sug- 

 ^sted that he had better be shut up. He chanced at the time to be in the 

 hog-pen, and he was confined in that enclosure. Ere long he began to gnaw 

 furiously at the rails and posts of the pen and to bite the hogs ; until the by- 



