HYDROPHOBIA. 399 



even joked about his inability to drink it, said he would try ? 

 and did try again and again. Most of us have seen a juvenile 

 attempt to achieve the rather difficult act of muscular me- 

 chanics, of simultaneously revolving the two hands in opposite 

 circles. It is not an easy thing to do ; many can never learn 

 to do it ; and the attitudes of boxing unconsciously assumed 

 during the attempt, viewed in relation to the serious aspect of 

 the executant, as he strives mentally as well as muscularly 

 to overcome the difficulty of what, if reasoned upon, seems 

 amongst the easiest of feats, gives an appearance of grotesque 

 absurdity. 



Comparable to this was the aspect of the poor fellow whose 

 image is now reproduced to my memory. ' Not able to swal- 

 low a cup of water /' (they did not trust him with a glass), 

 he would seem to say. ' Why not swallow a cup of water ? 

 Ridiculous! I will do it, so here goes!' Then he would slowly 

 and stealthily raise the cup to his lips, as if to get it there 

 unknown to some invisible enemy who sat mounting guard 

 and denying. 



He would open his lips ; then what followed could best be 

 compared to the effects of an invisible garrotting hand laid 

 violently upon the throat, and clutching it with vice-like fin- 

 gers. Soon the poor fellow's eyes seemed thrust from their 

 sockets. Convulsions originating in the throat went racking 

 along the muscles to each extremity. He uttered agonising 

 sounds; foam issued from his mouth. It was a scene that 

 might well have suggested demoniacal possession. Fanciful 

 writers of olden time have described the sounds uttered by 

 human patients suffering under an accession of hydrophobic 

 convulsions as comparable to the barking of dogs. This is 

 pure imagination ; the sounds uttered are no more than such 

 commonly uttered during convulsive pains, from whatever 

 cause originating. 



The case to which my memory reverts did not at the 

 time when I saw the patient, at least reveal symptoms of 



