APPENPIX. D. 325 



can give rise to it, although it may favor the extension and 

 activity of the contagion. 



" Among innumerable experiments which have been made, I 

 will only notice the cruel but striking one at the Veterinary 

 School of Alfort. Three dogs were chained, fully exposed to 

 the heat of the sun. Nothing but salted meat was given to one, 

 water alone to the second ; and neither food nor drinh to the 

 third. As might be expected, every one perished ; but neither 

 of them exhibited the slightest symptoms of rabies. See Disser- 

 tation sur la rage, by M. Bleynier, Paris." 



Mr. Blaine continues to discuss this point at some length, 

 learnedly and curiously no doubt, as the cognate question, also, 

 whether the disease arose spontaneously at first, in the Dog, or 

 in some of his congeners, such as the Wolf, Fox, or Jackal ; — 

 but these questions, however curious or interesting, become 

 merely matters of investigation and hypothetical enquiry for cri- 

 tics, being set at rest for all purposes of practical utility, by the 

 positive dictum, that the disease is now — even in the dog — never 

 SPONTANEOUSLY GENERATED — the remarks concerning food, 

 drink, climate, &c., I admitted here, not on their own account 

 so much, as in corroboration of that dictum. Thereafter follows 

 a discussion as to what animals are liable to this malady, and 

 capable of communicating it to others — the reply to which 

 appears to be conclusive : that all quadrupeds may be attacked 

 by it, and may convey the contagion to others, although the 

 probability of doing so is of course increased or diminished by 

 the natural predisposition of the animal to bite, or the reverse. 



Again, it appears to be certain, that the virus or communi- 

 cating medium resides in the saliva of the rabid animal ordy — 

 that the flesh, the blood, and the milk are innocent, whether 

 injected or taken inwardly — and lastly, that the virus can be 

 communicated through a wound or abrasion of the outer skin 

 and not otherwise — although it is barely possible that it may be 

 received through the mucous membrane of the lips, eyelids, or 

 nostrils. 



Whether the activity of the poison ceases with the life of the 

 rabid animal, is still a mooted point, and cannot be proved 



