234 NORTH AMERICAN MUSTELID.E. 



l)y the soubriquet 'Pike County/ diivinjra team for a party of euiigrants for 

 Colorado, was bitten at night, in the early }>art of May, lr*74, ui>on left cheek, 

 by a skunk, whilst camped at Park's Fort,* Kansas. A companion, who was 

 bitten by the same animal, freely cauterized the wound. Early the next 

 day he presented himself at the hospital for treatment. Removing the eschar 

 I cauterized it again freely with caustic, and directed that he take rVth graia 

 of strychnia every three hours during the day, with vegetable tonics and full 

 diet, the wound to be cauterized morning and night, and a poultice to be 

 applied one hour before retouching to remove the eschar and promote sup- 

 puration. No characteristic symptoms being produced by the strychnia on 

 the fourth day, it was increased to TL/th grain dose, given as before. Sup- 

 puration was fairly set up in the wound and continued; four days after, 

 strychnia increased to grain ^th, and continued at that for four days without 

 any symptoms of its toxic eftects. The dose was then increased to grain 

 ith, and continued for six days without the patient being conscious of any 

 jerkings, though the night nurse and some of the patients stated that he 

 jerked somewhat more than natural when asleep. Suppuration of the wound 

 continued free under the caustic and poultices; the dose of strychnia was 

 then increased to grain |, and I watched him very carefully, for the slightest 

 appearance of the effect of the medicine, for six days. On the last day I 

 detected some slight involuntary twitching of the muscles of the face, and 

 reduced the dose. Two days after reducing he remarked that he guessed that 

 he was safe from hydrophobia, as the strychnia had not killed him. The 

 wound was allowed to heal up, which it did rapidly, and a few days after he 

 left the hospital, and I saw him three mouths after perfectly well. 



" The above case shows either, first, that the man was not inoculated by 

 the virus when bitten ; second, a wonderful tolerance for the drug if he was 

 not so inoculated; or, third^ that acting primarily as a touic to the nerve 

 elements it enabled them "to resist the invasion of the disease, and together 

 with the frequent cauterization and free suppuration, to eliminate the poison 

 from the system. (That the strychnia used was a good article was proved 

 by the effect of a small dose upon an obftoxious cur of medium size.) I am 

 inclined to the latter, for that the animal causing the wound was undoubt- 

 edly rabid is proved by the fact that the companion who was bitten by the 

 same animal, in the camp, on the same evening, was reported to have died 

 from hydrophobia about ten days after being bitten, and should another case 

 present, would adopt the same treatment and push the drug until its char- 

 acteristic effects upon the system presented. 



" Rabies Mcphitica, like Rabies Canina, is evidently epidemical, no cases of 

 it having l);H'n reported pre'vious~to 1370 in this region. 



"Tlie period of incubation is alike in Rabies Canina and Rabies Mephitica 

 (so called), that is, it is indefinite, ranging from ten days to ninety days, no 

 opportunity in the meanwhile being afforded for subsequent inoculation of 

 hydrophobia. Statistics show that the manifestations of the disease have 

 been most numerous during the first sixty days, and that after a bite from a 

 rabid animal the probabilities of escape increase considerably when sixty 

 days have passed and no symptoms of the disease have shown themselves, 

 and that after the ninety days entire immunity is almost certain. Still, I 

 am aware that cases are reported of a longer period of incubation. These 



* " Park's Fort, K. P. R. W." 



