336 FACT AGAIXST FICTION. 



The term ^^ rabies" really means madness, 

 but madness is by no means hydrophobia. 



Hydrophobia, known to the Greeks, through 

 whom the name was handed to iis, or, I 

 may say, to all the nations upon earth, having 

 been by the veterinary surgeons of the present 

 day included in the mischievous term '^rabies," 

 which, divested of its mistakenly instilled poison, 

 simply means an animal rabid or mad, or for 

 the time being out of his senses, whose teeth 

 are not infectious, whose bite carries Avith it no 

 danger to the human race, nor to any animal 

 save of his own kind, to whom tTie bite could 

 only give, if the bitten dog had never suffered 

 from the epidemic before, a course of the com- 

 mon distemper. If the patient so infected took 

 the disease mildly, he might recover, and never 

 show a symptom of madness ; if he imbibed it 

 in its severest form, he might for a time be de- 

 prived of his senses and die, or he might recover 

 from the entire attack and live. 



This demonstrates, at least, the advice which 

 I have so repeatedly given, viz., ^^ Never in- 

 stantaneously destroy a supposed hydrophobic 

 dog," who lias bitten anything or anybody, be- 



