22, r 
ment, one fortnight for assaulting the police on his way from the 
hospital to the Town Hall, another fortnight for malingering. It 
was discovered afterwards that he was a discharged soldier from the 
4th Dragoon Guards. 
The prevalence of hydrophobia just now is somewhat remarkable. 
Up to the present time there have been twenty-five cases of hydro- 
phobia this year im London alone, the average annual number in 
the ten years, (1875-84) being only six. ; 
The Lancet of October 31st, says ‘‘ that the recent mortality from 
hydrophobia in London has indeed been without precedent since 
the commencement of civil registration in 1887, and calls for more 
regulations at the hands of the police. It is not without interest to 
find that in the Registrar-General’s last published annual report 
that mortality from hydrophobia in England and Wales: did not 
exceed the rate of one per million persons living in each of 
the five years 1879-83, whereas it averaged two per million in the 
nine years, 1870-78. The Lancet goes on to say that in preventive 
means must we look for the proper curb to the present serious 
increase of rabies in London. ‘There does not seem any reasonable 
doubt of the alarming spread of this direful malady, and those who 
have witnessed the disease, especially in the human subject, as I 
have, may reasonably be pardoned if under the circumstances they 
adopt a somewhat violent attitude in regard to the matter. To 
witness a poor sufferer shuddering at every light puff of air, to 
know that every attempt at the swallowing ofa liquid will excite the 
same spasmodic action, and to be aware of the certaimty of the 
approach of death, might at the moment excuse the utterance of a 
wish that all dogs should be destroyed. 
It is of considerable practical importance that the disease of rabies 
in dogs should be quickly recognized. The ordinary story of a mad 
dog is that he is killed by some heroic individual, usually by a 
policeman, but not before several persons—for the most part child- 
ren—have been bitten, Moreover, unless the animal is foaming at 
the mouth, wildly excited, and rushing aimlessly about, he is not 
suspected of being afflicted with hydrophobia, Yet there is no 
worse form of rabies than the ‘‘dumb madness”’ indicated mainly 
by intense sullenness. In this form there is paralysis of the lower 
jaw which hinders the dog from biting, and its ferocious instincts 
are in abeyance ; 15 per cent. of rabid dogs have this peculiar form. 
The symptoms of what maybe termed incipient rabies have long 
been recognized by veterinary surgeons, and amongst the most 
striking is the altered tone of the diseased dog’s bark. Instead of 
being clear and resonant it is raucous and dull, and such dogs 
sh uld at once be kept apart and deprived of the power of doing 
mischief until the existence of the disease is placed beyond a doubt, 
