in quantities fufficient to impofe a perpetual guictus 
on the moft frantic maniac. Here a fingular circum- 
ftance fometimes happens, not lefs furprifing to the 
{pectators than mortifying to the faculty.. The hy- 
drophobia on a fudden ceafes unexpectedly, the pa- 
tient calls for liquids, and drinks without difficulty. 
His friends rejoice, and fondly flatter themfelves the 
danger is over, and that the remedies have triumphed 
over the difeafe; when, alas! the momentary calm, 
the moft fatal of all figns, forebodes a palfy of the 
vital organs, the immediate precurfor of death! 
Hence the extreme abufe of mercury and opium is, per- 
haps, fometimes not Jefs deftructive than the difeafe. 
Bleeding has been performed repeatedly, and fome- 
times carried to an extravagant length, though it 
ferved but to exhauft the ftrength, and haften on the 
fatal period.—What remains then? Are we to give 
up the difeafe as totally incurable? Or ought we not 
rather to quit the beaten track, and {trike out fome 
newer road, that may afford a more promifing prof- - 
pect? Other animal poifons of the moft virulent kind 
have been often treated with fuccefs. Is this the 
only one, then, to which nature has denied a remedy? 
Banifhed be fuch a degrading idea, which at once 
tends to create defpondency, to damp the fpirit of 
enquiry, and to fhut out improvement. Hence, 
perhaps, it is, that medical praétitioners {till con- 
tent themfelves with re-tracing the fame hopelefs path, 
fo often trodden by their predeceffors; though they 
cannot 
