230 On Diseases and Accidents of Farmers, 



cut out, which will effectually secure the sufferer from all 

 danger of future disease. But the surgeon should take 

 care, that he do not inoculate with his knife, the parts 

 below the extent of the wound. After the first incision, 

 therefore, a clean knife should be used. 



It may be satisfactory to know that not more than one 

 in twelve persons bitten, are attacked by the disease : but 

 this fact must not cause the neglect of the local means 

 mentioned, for in the United States, every case that has 

 occurred has proved fatal. Wounds received through 

 clothes, are much less dangerous, than those inflicted upon 

 the bare skin, as the poisonous saliva in the former case, 

 would be probably wiped off from the teeth. 



In the event of the disease appearing, not a moment 

 should be lost in consulting a physician, and the treatment 

 I advise, is, to bleed the patient while standing or sitting 

 up, until fainting is produced, and if the symptoms recur 

 the operation must be repeated, and to the same extent. 

 The temporary exhaustion from the loss of blood, will 

 soon be recovered from, while death will be the inevitable 

 result of any other known treatment. I do not promise a 

 cure from the bleeding, but it has succeeded in two cases, 

 one in Calcutta, and one in England, and these Avar- 

 rant the use of it, considering the total failure of all other 

 remedies hitherto tried. It is essential, that the blood be 

 lost in the course of the two first days of the disease.* 

 Dogs should be carefully prevented from eating carrion 

 of any kind. The sufferer is earnestly intreated not to 

 trifle with his life by trusting to any of the numerous 

 specifics with which the public have at different times 

 been duped. Their recorded failures prove that they do 



* Physicians are referred to the "Medical Recorder of Phila- 

 delphia,'' vol. 2d, pp 174. 285, and vol. 6, p. 35 for the cases 

 cured bv bleeding, and my remarks thereon. The particulars 

 of any case in ^vhich this treatment shall have been adopted, with 

 or without success, will be acceptable to the author. 



