21 
antidote for every bacterium that invades our organism, but on this 
point more will be said by and bye. The actual diseased condition 
which constituted the chief seat and source of danger in hydrophobia 
in an abnormal activity of the blood vessels of that part of the 
central nervous system where the spinal marrow joins the brain. 
The morbid process in itself is not so formidable a character that it 
should be feared; nor indeed would there be so much cause for 
alarm if a similar diseased process occurred in another part of the 
nervous system. It so happens—unfortunately for the human and 
canine race—that the morbid agent on which rabies or hydrophobia 
is practially dependant, developes with the greatest luxuriance, and 
causes the most damage just in those parts of the brain which are 
most essential to life. Hence the as yet hopelessness and rapidity 
of this terrible: malady ; for the disease doubly deserves this epithet 
from the insidious and uncertain manner with which it creeps on, 
and from the at present absolute certainty of its ultimate issue, 
There are certain diseases which simulate hydrophobia such as 
tetanus, acute mania, organic brain diseases, accompanied by 
_ delirium and convulsions occurring after a bite. ven mere mental 
excitement, directed to the disease, may determine symptoms of 
difficulty of swallowing, somewhat resembling the genuine disease, 
“spurious hydrophobia’’ as it has been termed. It is important 
to remember that in some cases‘of general hydrophobia the influence 
_ of the patient’s mental state has been very clearly traceable even in 
_ the early symptoms. The distinction of genuime from spurious 
hydrophobia is often rendered difficult by the fact that the latter 
usually follows suspicious bites, an-| that the former may be dis- 
_ tinctly intensified by the patient’s nervous fears. 
Strangely enough, nearly all, if not all the symptoms of genuine 
 hydrophobia may be simulated. The following interesting and 
_ instructive case came under my notice last year: One evening I 
was suddenly called by an urgent message to go and see a man 
brought into our hospital with hydrophobia. On my arrival I was 
told that the patient had been picked up in Sandgate in a violent 
fit of spasm ; he was carried the whole distance, and had made two 
or three attempts to bite people on the way. He barked at times 
exactly like a dog. When I saw him he was comfortably placed in 
_ bed,his back was exceedingly arched, and all his facial muscles were 
rigid. He could not speak, and had refused spasmodically all drink. 
I cannot here go into my reasons for disagreeing with the diagnosis 
that had already been made, but I applied a test by means of con- 
_ tinual pressure for a few minutes in the hollow just underneath the 
_ globe-of the ear. The hydrophobia disappeared as quickly as it 
had come on. The man was ordered to be taken to the Town Hall. 
_ The next morning the attack was visited with a month’s imprison- 
—.* = = 
