l-i8 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



caused it, we cannot tell. No case of real hydro- 

 phobia has ever been known to commence otherwise 

 than from tlie bite of a hydrophobic mad dog ; or, 

 in one instance, as in the case of the Duke of 

 Eichmond, from a tame fox. Dogs have become 

 hydrophobic who have not been knotvn to he hitten ; 

 but in instances such as those, the '' hydrophobic 

 dog" has not all his time been under his owner's 

 notice, and therefore his owner cannot tell with 

 w^liat dogs he may or may not have come in 

 contact. There is an obsolete vulgarism, that of 

 calling the hottest weather in summer the ^^ dog- 

 days," a supposition being existent that heat 

 engendered ^' hydrophobia" in the canine race. 

 It does not engender '^ lnjdrophohiaj' but great 

 heat will severely bring on, in dogs affected with 

 ^' distemper ^''^ its* most severe phases, and at times 

 make them mad. The tame fox that caused the 

 lamented death in Canada of the Duke of Rich- 

 mond ivas accessible to every cur and dog in his 

 vicinitf/ ; and that fox, to my mind, liad been 

 thus made the channel of the most horrible and 

 fatal disease, through his being accessible to some 

 creature who was at the time suffering from it. 

 Very much the same sym^jtoms surround the 



