LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 67 



died, I think, on third day after the experiment. But circumstances 

 had intervened, to the influence of which its death might in part be 

 attributed. The second case occupied a much shorter space of time, 

 and was quite successful. The ass is still alive. 



" Every person present seemed convinced that the virulence of 

 the wourali poison was completely under the command of the 

 operator ; and that, by this artificial process, its malignant qualities 

 could always be subdued. In a word, the company present came to 

 the conclusion that it can be safely applied to a human being 

 labouring under hydrophobia, one of the most terrible and fatal of 

 all the diseases that have ever afflicted mankind. Mr Sibson has 

 most wonderfully improved the bellows, and thus rendered the 

 process much less laborious. He has by him a fair store of the 

 very poison which I brought from the forests of Guiana in 1812. I 

 myself have also a good supply of it, as pure and as potent as it was 

 on the day in which I procured it. 



" I wish it to be particularly understood that I do not claim for 

 myself the merit of this discovery, should it prove successful. I 

 certainly paved the way to it by going in quest of the poison, which 

 I acquired in its pure state at my own expense, and at the cost ot 

 my health. But to Professor Sewell of the Veterinary College in 

 London is due the merit of applying it in cases of hydrophobia. 

 He was the first, I believe, who ever suggested the idea ; and so 

 certain was he of a favourable result, that I heard him declare before 

 Sir Joseph Banks and a large company of scientific gentlemen, that 

 were he unfortunate enough to be bitten by a mad dog, and become 

 infected with hydrophobia, he would not hesitate one moment in 

 having the wourali poison applied, us he felt confident that the 

 application of it would prove successful. When all had been arranged 

 at Nottingham relative to the application of the wourali poison in 

 cases of hydrophobia, I took rny leave of the gentlemen assembled, 

 and returned home. 



"Spring passed rapidly away, and when summer had set in, I 

 began to make arrangements of a domestic nature for a visit to the 

 Eternal City, not having been there since the year 1818. When I 

 had finished the arrangement of my domestic affairs, I called up the 

 gamekeeper, and made him promise, as he valued his place, that he 



