1824.) 
mata throughout the entire building. The 
proportions here employed may be there- 
fore considered as sufficient for the most 
extreme case. And although the limits 
are rather guessed at than judged of by any 
well-founded rule; yet I should consider 
that from one-half to one-fourth of the chlo- 
rine here employed is quite ‘sufficient for 
any of the usual cases where fumigation 
may be required. , 
? PUBLICOLA. 
—— 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
Some Ozservations on Hypropnosia. 
By John Fosbroke, Esq., Resident 
Surgeon at Cheltenham. 
OR the last year or more, reports 
of cases of hydrophobia have been 
very general. To me, however, the 
assertion of the actual existence of hy- 
drophobia in most of these cases is much 
more confident than the difficulty of 
distinguishing the disease would seem 
to warrant. Indeed, it would appear 
that detail was thought unnecessary ; 
that the cases were so obvious, that to 
have known of the indisposition of a 
dog, and to have given it the appella- 
tion of hydrophobia was sufficient. The 
same complacent mode of settling the 
existence of hydrophobia occurs also 
where scientific and close. discrimina- 
tion would be looked for. I allude 
to the Parisian cases. There it seems 
that blood was abstracted from the 
veins, and water injected into them, 
in a case of hydrophobia so called, 
which evidently was neither more nor 
less than phrenitis. This experiment 
was unsuccessful, and the probability 
seems to be that it always will be ‘so. 
The aqueous injections* were first tried 
upon dogs, and, if my memory is not trea- 
cherous, they died in consequence. of 
the process. 
Such is the loose and doubtful 
manner in which cases of hydrophobia 
are generally reported. Yet one Eng- 
lish author has described the disease 
' with singular accuracy; and it seems 
not a little surprising that his informa- 
tion should have been so entirely over- 
looked. The late Dr. Parry of Bath,t 
and Dr, Parry alone, has given such 
an account of the order and quality 
of the true symptoms of that disease 
as would enable any body to dis- 
+——____ — — os 
* See an account of these experiments 
by Mr. Majendie, in Brande’s Journal of 
Science and Arts, about two years ago. 
+ Cases of tetanus and rabies contagiosa, 
by Caleb Hillier Parry, M.D., F.R.S., &e. 
&c. &e, 1814. 
Monvuty Mac. No. 402. 
Observations on Hydrophobia. 
313 
tinguish it accurately. It seems de- 
sirable to recall public attention to this 
subject now more particularly, when, 
though Dr. Parry could find only thirty- 
six well authenticated cases of genuine 
hydrophobia, as many occur almost 
every month, if newspapers are to be 
credited. “A tabular view of the lead- 
ing discriminations, circulated in a 
public journal, would be of much use, 
both towards preventing those vague 
rumours and descriptions which lead to 
a barbarous carnage among. animals, and 
oftentimes to a disease altogether illu- 
sory, viz. mental hydrophobia. In ano- 
ther point of view, it is no less neces- 
sary that some tests should be applied, 
that the new experiments may be con- 
fined to real cases of hydrophobia: for 
in any other disease confounded with 
it, if these experiments do not directly 
tend to the destruction of the patient, 
which is not quite clear, they may do 
so indirectly, by superseding other more 
availing processes. 
Dr. Parry first shews the great resem- 
blance and yet essential difference be- 
tween the effects. of terror'and the ge- 
nuine hydrophobia. In the cases of 
true rabies, which illustrate this differ- 
ence,. the patients were indifferent and 
unconcerned about the accident which 
gave rise to it. 
The characteristics of genuine rabies 
are: 
1. The part which is primarily affected, 
so as to give occasion to the symptom called 
hydrophobia, is not the pharynx, cesopha- 
gus, or stomach ; but the upper portion of 
the trachea, together with other parts of 
the apparatus concerned in the functions 
of respiration. The trutl? of this position is 
evident from the following circumstances :— 
First, At certain periods of the disease, the 
capability of swallowing solids without diffi- 
culty or any tendency to the production 
of éonvulsion. — Secondly, The local con- 
vulsions being brought on not only by 
swallowing, but by a quick impulse of air. 
— Thirdly, Spontaneous attacks of the con- 
vulsions begin with a violent sobbing inspi- 
ration, in which the shoulders are generally 
preternaturally elevated, as in asthma, and 
the abdomen strongly protruded by the 
forcible’ depression of the diaphragm.— 
Fourthly, This state is still more strongly 
marked when the convulsion is brought on 
by the attempt to swallow liquids,—by the 
mere contact of them with the fauces, be- 
fore any attempt to swallow them,—by the 
apprehension of them, or by the strong im- 
pulse of air; in either of which cases the 
power of respiration seems suspended, or 
very irregularly performed ; and the patient 
experiences a sense of strangulation, which- 
25 shews 
