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becomes attive, produces a fenfe of pain, tingling, or 
numbnefs in the part, the firft harbingers of impend- 
ing mifchief. To thefe fucceed inquietude, reftlefs- 
nefs, and an uneafy fenfation about the throat: next 
follows, accompanied with tremendous fpafms, and 
arrayed in all its terrors, that awful fymptom the 
‘HYDROPHOBIA, which generally, on or before the 
end of the fourth day, completes its fatal career! 
If the faliva of a rabid animal be the fole caufe of 
the difeafe, by what fecret means is its influence 
transferred to the organs of deglutition? Is it im- 
bibed by the lymphatics, and its noxious quality 
exerted principally on the blood, as Abbe Fontana 
imagines? Or does it not rather aét on the nerves of 
the part affected? And is not the local irritation, - 
according to an eftablifhed law of the fyftem, firft 
- propagated to the fenforium by nervous communi- 
cation, and thence refle&ted back to the throat and 
‘alivary glands? 
Thus, in a certain ftate and condition of the body, 
the mere punéture of a nerve or tendon, even after 
the wound is apparently well and cicatrized, is fome- 
imes fufficient to produce the locked-jaw, interrupt 
Jeglutition, and convulfe the whole fyftem. In like 
manner may the epileptic paroxyfm be fometimes 
raced to irritation, commencing in a remote part of 
he fyftem, and gradually propagated to the brain 
by nervous fympathy. 
Other 
