19 
The disease has resulted from the teeth being used to loosen a 
knot upon a rope with which a rabid dog had been tied. 
It has been asserted that the disease may arise from the bite of a 
healthy dog, but this is improbable. Cases are on reeord, however, 
in which the disease has followed the bite of a dog which did not at 
the time or for several weeks afterwards present the recognized 
symptoms of the disorder. It seems quite possible that in rare 
cases rabies may affect a dog as a mild and insignificant malady. 
It is important to recollect that two thirds of the persons bitten by 
rabid dogs—even when no preventive measures have been used— 
escape. The impunity may be due partly to the bites being inflicted 
through clothes, partly to individual insusceptibility, which has been 
found to exist in animals as well as in man. 
It is rather curious that more males suffer than females. So, 
too,in dogs. I think that this must be due in the former case to 
- the fact that men, until quite recently, have had much more to do 
with dogs than women. When I tell you that most cases of hydro- 
phobia are contracted from pet dogs, you will agree with me in 
saying that, considering the great increase of dogs of this class, there 
is need of a great deal more supervision than at present it has been 
thought necessary to bestow upon such dogs. 
Children frequently suffer on account of their helplessness, and 
60 are bitten about the face. 
In many cities of the East large numbers of ownerless dogs act 
the part of scavengers, and rabies is said to be absolutely unknown 
_ amongst them. In the western world we have learned to associate 
_ the “dog days,’ as being especially pernicious to the canine race, 
. with “Sirius” but it is now an admitted fact that hot weather has, 
_ little influence in producing rabies. We all must remember the 
_ old ‘dog days” in the hot summer weather, and how at that time 
every dog used to go about muzzled. 
_ The disease is probably contagious, and in support of this state- 
_ ment it may be said that quarantine and other precautions of a 
similar kind have hitherto excluded the disease from Australia and 
_ New Zealand. 
_ The period of incubation, that is the time between the introduc- 
_ tion of the poison into the skin and the manifestation of the symp- 
toms, is longer than that of any other acute specific disease, and is 
irregularly variable. It is rarely less than a month, the shortest 
on record haying been about twelve days, the average period being 
about six or seven weeks. In about half the cases it is between one 
and three months. In some cases it is longer, reaching six, nine, 
or twelve months. . 
The symptoms of the disease are many, and for the most part 
characteristic, but I need only refer to those which are especially 
