Case of HydrophoUa cured in India ly Bleedi?ig. 417 



produced by the bite of a rabid animal. I admit the scepti- 

 cism to be reasonable ; for, in the relation of a case which 

 has terminated so tlifferently from all others yet on record, 

 (not even excepting the case so successfully treated by Mr. 

 Tymon,) it is natural to suspect either some misconception 

 or misrepresentation of facts, or some fallacy in the de- 

 ductions derived from them. 



An attentive perusal of the preceding narrative will, it is 

 presumed, reniove these doubts from the minds of the ma- 

 jority of readers. Yet, as some individuals may not be 

 convinced by that evidence which to others appears full 

 and satisfactory ; and as it is a matter of the utmost im- 

 portance to future sufferers from hydrophobia, that no 

 doubt should be allowed to remain, either as to the existence 

 of the disease itself, in the case above related, or that the 

 bleeding was the sole remedy, I shall, as briefly as possible, 

 endeavour to establish the certainty of both those facts be- 

 yond the possibility of contradiction. 



To a person who has never seen a case of hydrophobia, 

 I acknowledge the difficulty, nay, almost the impossibility, 

 of conveying by words an adequate notion of the disease. 

 The horrors of that state must be seen to be fully conceived j 

 but being once seen by a medical observer of any discern- 

 n)ent, they are indelibly fixed in the mind ; and I contend 

 that it would then be highly improbable that he should ever 

 mistake any other disease for hydrophobia ; or take hydro- 

 phobia for any of those aflections to which it has been said 

 to bear some resemblance ; — so deep and so permanent, I 

 am convinced, would be the impression left on his mind by 

 the contemplation of even a single case of hydrophobia. 

 But when I slate that my situation as surgeon to the Cal- 

 cutta Native Hospital, for the last eighteen years, has af- 

 forded me opportunities of seeing the disease, which have 

 fallen to the lot of few individuals in any country, and that 

 no less than seventeen or eighteen cases of it have come 

 under my observation within that period, in all of which 

 both my diagnosis and prognosis (with the single exception 

 of the latter in the case under consideration) have unhappily 

 been but too fatally verified, it is not, I trust, laying claim 

 to too great a share of discernment to assert that I could 

 not easily be mistaken in a case of hydrophobia; and that 

 I should consider my being so as unlikely, as that an ex- 

 perienced surgeon should ever confound two diseases the 

 most opposite in ihcir nature, because, to an uninformed 

 eye, they might both exhibit something of the same ex- 

 ternal appearance. 



Vol. 41. No. 182. June 1813. Dd Further: 



