498 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



rabies December 29. One of the dogs, whose owner was 

 *' notified" to keep him in quarantine, was a setter, and was 

 taken to Grand Isle, off Osterville in the town of Barnstable, 

 January 4, to be used- for hunting; here he was ordered 

 quarantined by the Cattle Commission, January 4, as the 

 result of a letter from the Boston inspector, and remained 

 there until February 17, when his owner broke quarantine 

 through ignorance of the law, but was not prosecuted, as he 

 made ample apology to the Board for the misunderstanding, 

 and promised to keep him under control until the three 

 months was up. The dog remained healthy. No further 

 trouble has resulted from the Boston outbreak, so far as the 

 commission has been informed. 



There were a couple of cases of rabies in Melrose in No- 

 vember, 1898. One of these was a strange dog, who owned 

 him or where he came from not being known. He strayed 

 into a prayer meeting in the Baptist Church one evening, and 

 bit a woman on the face ; she died about a month later of 

 hydrophobia. Seeing an account of this case in the daily 

 papers the last of December was the first intimation the 

 Cattle Commission had of the presence of this disease in 

 Melrose. Upon investigation, further particulars were ob- 

 tained concerning this case, and it was also ascertained that 

 another dog owned in that town died of what was supposed 

 to be rabies in November. Two dogs which used to play 

 with the latter were ordered quarantined, as a matter of pre- 

 caution ; they were kept in a state of isolation until March 

 2, when they were released from quarantine, still healthy. 

 It seems that the tramp dog, which bit the woman in church, 

 had been noticed for a couple of days in the neighborhood. 

 After he bit the woman the Baptist minister held him so he 

 could do no further damage, and handed him over to the 

 police, who shut him up and then allowed him to escape ; he 

 then bit a boy, whereupon he was recaptured and shot. After 

 learning of the danger from the woman's death, the boy went 

 to New York and took the Pasteur preventive treatment. 

 The Cattle Commission does not know that the police reported 

 the suspected case of rabies in the dog to the Melrose board 

 of health ; if they did, the board of health never reported it 



