HYDROPHOBIA. 393 



upon dogs and serpents in contrast those the natural friends 

 of man, these liis natural enemies considering the matter in- 

 trinsically, the result is as I put it. 



The poison-bite of a serpent is short and decisive in action 

 and results. No lingering here, 110 room for suspense. The 

 symptoms manifest themselves at once ; the poisoning runs 

 a rapid course ; death or recovery is imminent, well-nigh im- 

 mediate; and death, when occurring, is ushered in hy no 

 considerable pain. 



All these conditions are reversed in hydrophobia. The 

 specific results of a hydrophobous inoculation are never im- 

 mediate. A period of incubation, more or less, there always 

 is ; wherefore an American pathologist was led to class hy- 

 drophobia among the contagious fevers. As touching this 

 period of incubation, or rather the limits of it, the greatest 

 uncertainty has prevailed, and still prevails. 



Dioscorides states that hydrophobia, more frequently than 

 otherwise, breaks out subsequent to the fortieth day after 

 inoculation, but sometimes even after the lapse of a year, 

 ( ut nos experientia comperimus.' This opinion of Diosco- 

 rides is, upon the whole, consonant with the preponderance 

 of testimony which has been accumulating subsequent to the 

 time when he wrote. This is the most a pathologist feels 

 warranted in testifying about it. 



Salus, Salmuth, and Albertus Magnus testified to the 

 belief, that hydrophobia might break out after an incubation 

 of even twelve, nay, even after so much as twenty years. 

 Gaspar a Eeies goes farther, in mentioning a special case 

 that had actually occurred after an incubation of twenty 

 years. Are we warranted in simply repudiating as fictions 

 all these statements ? Does testimony, does pathology, autho- 

 rise us so to do 1 By no means ; and, what is more to the 

 purpose, no amount of evidence can ever directly negative 

 that assumption, seeing that the question whether hydro- 

 phobia can arise spontaneously, or whether it be always the 



