RABIES CAXINA, OR HYDROPHOBIA. 453 



never witnessed. A general nondescript epizootic influence 

 has been blamed for outbreaks of rabies, but the most effec- 

 tual way to check the progress of the disease is to insist on 

 all dogs being muzzled, and such a measure has been car- 

 ried out with great effect in Berlin, Vienna, Milan, and 

 other important cities. For some years a tax on dogs was 

 imposed in Berlin with a view to diminish the number of 

 roving and homeless animals, but the number of cases of 

 hydrophobia did not diminish until 1854, when muzzling 

 was ordered, and strictly executed upon all dogs not tied 

 up. From the year 1845 to 1853 inclusive, 278 cases of 

 rabies (nearly 28 per annum) were verified at the Berlin 

 Veterinary School ; while from 1854 to 1861 inclusive, 

 only 9 cases have occurred, and none of these since 

 1856. 



The virus of rabies is a fixed one, and discharged from 

 the body in the saliva. It is most certainly introduced 

 into the bodies of animals by the rabid creatures who, from 

 natural cunning and ferocity, aim at the most vulnerable 

 points of the human frame or other living thing. Wolves 

 attack men on the face and neck, and the bite of a rabid 

 wolf is thus more commonly followed by the development 

 of the disease than the bite of a rabid dog, which is inflicted 

 through clothes, &c. One great cause of the prevalence of 

 rabies in various parts of the Continent, is the ready com- 

 munication of the disease through wild animals. In Bri- 

 tain a rabid dog may attack a flock of sheep or fallow 

 deer, but in the French and German forests he meets with 

 victims capable of transmitting the virus ad infinitum. 

 These are important considerations in relation to the causes 

 of hydrophobia. According to Tardieu, 55 per cent, of the 

 bites by rabid dogs prove effective in the transmission of 

 the disease. This is very different from Hunter's statement, 



