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LXXXI. Intelligence and Miscetlaneous Articles. 
COMMUNICATIONS FROM MR. JOHN MURRAY. 
« Rabies canina.—At page 311 of your October Number, you 
state, on the authority of a correspondent in the Medical and 
Physical Journal, that the rabies canina invariably affects the 
male dog, and never the female. This assertion, however, al- 
low me to state, is false. I have, myself, been recently con- 
nected with experiments on two mad dogs. ‘The first was a 
pointer bitch, and the other a pointer dog bitten by the former. 
The dog exhibited all the phenomena of the sullen madness, 
and the bitch those of the “ biting madness,”’ so very accurately 
described in both cases by the ingenious author of the article 
“Dog” in Rees’s Cyclopedia. 
Calculous Diseases, 8c.—I had frequently noticed the in- 
teresting fact that Mr. Dalton has adverted to, in the action of 
waters containing supercarbonate of lime on vegetable blue co- 
lours ; but, *¢ devotion to established authority” induced me to 
attribute the phenomenon to the presence of an alkaline car- 
bonate. 1 observed this first in my analysis of the mineral 
spring adjacent to the Temple of Serapis near Pozzouli. 
In analysing lately some rain-water from a rain gauge fixed 
apart from buildings, I detected a minute portion of lime: and 
as I find that tincture of cabbage exposed to the atmosphere 
soon exhibits a film of a green colour, I am disposed to attribute 
the change to the presence of supercurlonate of lime. 
I may be permitted to add, that I have invariably found cal- 
culous diseases most prevalent in districts where the water con- 
tains sulphate of lime; and an almost total absence of the dis- 
ease where the springs exhibit supercarbonate of lime on analy- 
sis. The County of Norfolk is an example of the former, and 
Holderness an instanee of the latter. 
The Diamond.—The following phenomena may be deemed in- 
teresting in reference to the physiological history of the diamond : 
By repeatedly exposing a diamond to the action of the oxy- 
hydrogen blow-pipe in a nidus of magnesia, it became as black as 
charcoal, and split into fragments which displayed the conchot- 
dal fracture. : 
Tt will be found, that this gem affixed in magnesia soon flies 
off in minute fragments, exhibiting the impress of the conchoidal 
form. ~ 
In lately exposing the diamond fixed on a support of pipe- 
clay to the ignited gas, I succeeded in completely indenting it :— 
examined 
