124 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



happen, and wliicli never happened. It shn- 

 ply enabled me to keep myself 'or my servant 

 from the natural discomfort attending the bite of 

 a dog under any circumstances whatever. The 

 majority of my young greyhounds died ; all of 

 them under symptoms which the ignorant and 

 uninitiated would at once have pronounced as 

 ^' hydrophobia." Some of them completely re- 

 covered, having exchanged bites with those that 

 died, and for a time been quite as insane, — the 

 latter a proof incontestable of what the disease 

 really was. 



As I have remarked before, every animal in 

 existence, as well as man, carnivorous or gra- 

 nivorous, is susceptible of taking the poison from 

 the bite of a really hydrophobic dog ; and as all 

 the living race, who are thus prone to this terrible 

 infliction, are capable of transmitting it to others, 

 v'here. can we find a fjreater j)roof of the extreme 

 rarity of the disease ? 



Among the remedies sought to ameliorate or 

 counteract the '' distem2)er," there is one that in my 

 mind stands pronunent in its effects, and which is 

 an effectual prevention of the disease itself. At the 

 death of the late Sir Matthew Ticrncyj the eminent 



