On Diseases a?id Accidents of Farmers. 229 



Every person who keeps a dog is liable to this disease, 

 and not a year passes w ithout the publication of accounts 

 of deaths froju it. To guard against it let the following 

 cautions be attended to : — Avoid all intercourse with 

 strange dogs, or cats. These animals when infected, 

 often bite without provocation, and without exhibiting the 

 least symptom of disease. A bite received from one of 

 these animals, whether young or old, in the first hour of 

 the disease, and however small, is equally dangerous as a 

 large one, or one inflicted w hen at its height : nay, cases 

 related on most respectable authority have occurred in 

 the United States, and in other countries, of the disease 

 and death being produced by bites from dogs, while the 

 dogs themselves continued in good health.* 



In case of a wound being received, it should be in- 

 stantly wiped, and washed with soap and water, and then 

 well sucked, either by the sufferer himself or another per- 

 son. There is not the smallest danger in thus applying 

 the saliva of the dog to a sound mouth, for a wound or a 

 sore are essentially necessary to give activity to the poi- 

 son. If the wound be large, water should be poured from 

 a tea-kettle on it, for half an hour, and the edges of the 

 wound opened, to give free admission to it: and in every 

 case, ley of wood ashes, or a solution of potash in water, 

 must be afterwards used as a wash. Mercurial oint- 

 ment should then be rubbed in the wound, which must 

 be prevented from healing for two weeks. The ap- 

 plication of caustics to the wound has repeatedly tailed 

 to prevent the disease. If a skilful surgeon be at hand, 

 and the part bitten admit of the operation, it should be 



* See the Med. Recorder of Philadelphia, vol. 2d, for my 

 paper on this disease. In two of these cases it is not men- 

 tioned whether the dogs, at the time they bit the person, exhi- 

 bited any marks of indisposition. One dog did not exhibit the 

 least appearance of being mad< 



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