ANATOMICAL CHARACTERS. 231 



latory organs seem to liave borne the force of the diseased 

 action. So that alone the simple morbid anatomy is not 

 enough to enable us to decide whether or not rabies has been 

 the cause of death. In the majority of cases we may observe 

 general congestions and inflammations in connection with 

 nearly every organ and structure. 



In the abdominal cavity ecchymoses and spots of blood- 

 extravasation are scattered over the different viscera, appear- 

 ing in different forms in the serous membrane of each. The 

 gland-structures, particularly the liver and spleen, have been 

 noted as giving evidence of many textural changes. One or 

 other, more rarely both of these, are said to be engorged, 

 swollen, and friable from hypenTemia and other blood-changes. 

 The lungs are usually congested, and the smaller air-tubes 

 filled with slightly coloured mucus. The heart, while exhibit- 

 ing sub-endocardial blood-patches and superficial blood-stain- 

 ing, contains imperfectly formed coagula, often fibrinous clots. 

 The visible character of the blood is variable, being sometimes 

 darker than natural, and giving evidence of its ability to stain 

 membranes and tissues from an altered condition of its 

 coloured corpuscles. Throughout the alimentary canal, from 

 fauces to rectum, we may observe a variable amount of con- 

 gestion or blood-extravasation rather than of inflammatory 

 action. In the nervous centres and around certain nerve- 

 trunks we may notice a distinctly hyperaBmic condition, with, 

 in rarer instances, effusion of a peculiar material. It seems, 

 however, rather doubtful whether these conditions ought to 

 be regarded as consequences of the disturbed activities, or as 

 inducing factors of them. 



Various careful examinations of the tissue-elements of the 

 different parts of the nerve-centres likely to afford evidence of 

 disease have at different times been made, and much believed to 

 be abnormal has been stated to have been detected. How much 

 of these elemental changes is adventitious and how much is 

 specific does not seem possible to determine. On several occa- 

 sions microscopic examination of nerve-centres from other 

 animals than the horse has shown considerable and rather 

 varied changes in connection with the minute vascular con- 

 duits; these changes are chiefly capillary thrombosis, much 

 invasion of the perivascular sheath of the veins, with a pecu- 



