314 HYDROPHOBIA. 
creatures have been known to tear away portions of their own bodies as calmly as if they 
were lacerating the dead body of another Dog. A similar inse usibility to pain is notice- 
able in human lunatics, who will often inflict the most terrible injuries on their own 
persons, with the most deliberate and unconcerned air imaginable. The nerves seem to be 
deprived of their powers, and to be insensible even to the contact of burning coals or 
red-hot metals. In anger, too, which is in truth a short-lived madness, pain is unfelt, and 
the severest wounds may be received unheeded. 
It is possible that this locomotive instinct of the Dog may give a clue to the cure of this 
fearful malady, and that if a rabid Dog could be permitte .d to follow its instinct without 
molestation it might rid itself of its ailment by means of this unwonted exercise. 
By this terrible malady the nerves are excited to the highest degree of tension, and it 
is not improbable that by violent and continual exercise the system might be enabled to 
throw off the “peccant humours” that infect every particle of the blood as it circulates 
through the veins, and envenom the natural moisture of the Doo’s tongue. 
There exists a curious parallel to this propensity for exertion in the celebrated 
Tarantula-dancing which was so famous in Naples during the sixteenth century. Those 
persons who were affected with this curious disease, w hich was for many years thought 
to be the effect of the bite of the Tarantula spider, were impelled to leap and dance 
continually in a kind of frenzy, until they sank from sheer fatigue. In many cases the 
dancing would continue for three or four days, and seemed to be cured best by the 
profuse perspirations which poured from the wearied frames of the dancers. In a similar 
manner the effects of a serpent’s tooth may be driven from the system. When a person 
has suffered from the bite of a cobra, or other venomous snake, the most effectual treat- 
ment is to prevent him from falling into the lethargy which is produced by the poisonous 
infusion, and to keep him in constant and violent motion. 
It is a remarkable fact that the Tarantismus, as this disease is termed, used in many 
cases to recur at regular annual intervals, as has already been related of the wounds 
caused by the lion’s bite, and is the case with the healed wound which has been inflicted 
by the teeth of a rabid Dog. So subtle is this influence, and so thoroughly does it 
pervade the system, that where anger has risen in the mind of a person who has been 
bitten by a mad Dog, and by taking precaution has felt no evil results, the old sores have 
become flushed and swollen, and throbbed in unison with the angry feelings that occupied 
their mind. 
How the nature of the Doe can be so utterly changed as to charge its bite with 
deadly venom, or how it is that the moist saliva of the rabid animal should communicate 
the disease to other beings, is at present but a mystery. There seems to be an actual 
infusion of the Doe nature into the animal which is bitten by a rabid Dog, or by one of 
the creatures which has been inoculated by the bite of one of these terrible beings. It is 
evident that the virus is resident in the saliva, because the malady has been commu- 
nicated by the mere touch of the Doe’s tongue upon a wound without the infliction of a 
bite from its teeth. Yet it is equally evident that the poisonous property belongs not to 
the saliva, but to the influence which is conducted by its means. In some strange fashion 
the spirit of the angry Dog seems to be infused into the victim of its bite, and it is well 
known that even where an angry Dog has in the heat of its passion inflicted a wound the 
result has been very similar to Hydrophobia, though the animal was not affected with 
that disease. Ordinarily, the bite of a Dog, such as the playful bite of a puppy, though 
sufficiently painful, carries no danger with it, but if the animal has only been touched 
with this malady its bite is but too frequently fatal. This death-dealing influence has 
been proved to remain in the saliva for four-and-twenty hours after the animal’s death. 
Perhaps there may be something of electricity in the fatal influence, which requires a 
fluid conductor, for if the teeth of the animal have been wiped dry by passing through 
the clothing of its intended victim no evil results follow. 
Not every one that is bitten by a rabid Dog is a sufferer from Hy drophobia, for it is 
needful that the constitution should be in a fit state to receive the poison, for its influence 
to produce any effect. We may notice a similar phenomenon among those who are 
nee Someé persons appear to be almost proof against the vaccine virus, while 
