Miscellaneous Intelligence. 21. 5 



dark green smooth foliage. In the early part of the season, the tubers are 

 taken off as they attain the size of early kidney potatoes; later the whole 

 crop is dug up. If the sweet potato were once fairly introduced into first- 

 rate gardens, we have no doubt it would form an article of regular culture 

 there. 



Since writing the above, we observe, in the last edition of the Bon Jardi- 

 nier, that the sweet potato is cultivated in the south of France, where the 

 shoots and leaves are reckoned excellent forage for cows and horses, and 

 that some people eat them as spinach. Directions are given for preserving 

 the tubers through the winter in layers in a box of very dry sand, no one 

 tuber touchiug another ; the box closed and surrounded by a good thickness 

 of straw, and the whole put in another box, and placed under a heap of 

 straw, so as to prevent the tubers from undergoing any change of tempera- 

 ture. — Gardener's Magazine, June, 1829. 



Canine Madness. — After a brief historical notice of the progress of our 

 knowledge of Rabies, as a department of the veterinary art, and an intro- 

 ductory account of the different alleged varieties of the disease, Dr. Hertwig 

 proceeds to describe it as occurring in two forms, that of Raging rabies, 

 (rasenden Wuth,) and that of Calm rabies, (stillen Wuih ;) he then details 

 the morbid appearances he has found in the bodies after death ; he next 

 draws the distinction between rabies and the other diseases of the dog which 

 are apt to be confounded with it ; he afterwards relates in succinct, but 

 comprehensive terms, several cases of the two varieties of the disease; and 

 he concludes with a statement of his experiments of inoculation, and of the 

 general inferences to which they lead. We shall present a short view of 

 what he has brought forward under each of these heads. 



Many people, he says, conceive that canine madness is announced by 

 certain precursory symptoms, such as unusual irritability, or sluggishness, 

 increased warmth of the point of the nose, increased sparkling and redness 

 of the eyes, enlargement of the pupils, retraction of the lips, bristling of the 

 hair, and the like. But although he was always on the watch for such 

 warnings, he was very seldom able to observe them. When symptoms of the 

 kind were unequivocally present, other symptoms also existed, and the 

 disease was in reality fully formed. 



The first symptom of the Raging form of rabies is a change in the 

 behaviour of the animal, sometimes dulness, sluggishness, and peevishness, 

 sometimes, on the other hand, increased sensibility, activity and serviceable - 

 ness, with a disposition to anger ; and the change of temper, whatever it 

 may be, is not permanent but intermitting.— A very common symptom at 

 the beginning is a great disposition to lick cold objects, such as a chain, 

 stones, heads of nails, the noses of other dogs, and the like. — Restlessness is 

 also a very commou early symptom. In its slightest degree this is manifested 

 in frequent shifting of toe place where they lie, and a tendency to go often 

 towards the door, without an object ; in its highest degree it impels the 

 animal to run off to a considerable distance in the neighbourhood, sometimes 

 for a whole day ; but it always returns home if permitted, and there takes 

 ~1easure in recognizing its acquaintances. The degree of restlessness often 

 epends on the usage which the dog receives at home. — A rabid dog never 

 loses its intelligence entirely till it is near the point of death. All know 

 their master or keeper, and obey him more or less, but less and less as the 

 malady gains ground ; and those which have been taught tricks will for 

 some days perform them when told. No mad dog is completely disobedient 

 to his master, but becomes more and more so the more the disease advances, 

 and the more he is irritated. — Loss of appetite is a very early and nearly 

 invariable symptom. A few will take throughout even their whole illness a 

 little soup or a morsel of soft bread or flesh. But by far the greater number 

 refuse food entirely at an early period, and many of them even two days 

 before any other symptom of note would be remarked by a careless observer. 

 This is a striking character of rabies; for in all other diseases of the dog, 

 the appetite does not fail till the disease is fully formed, or at least is 

 obvious to an ordinary observer.— Loss of appetite is almost invariably 

 accompanied with a propensity to eat indigestible substances, such as straw, 

 leather, wool, fragments of wood, turf, and glass, and also to swallow their 

 ->wn urine and dung, as well as those of other dogs, This depraved appetite 



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