RABIES. 225 



susceptible to the contagion by inoculation as dogs. This is 

 well exemplified in what occurred a few years ago to a bitch 

 pack of foxhounds belonging to Mr. Standish, South Shoreham, 

 Southampton. The pack was nearly exterminated by rabies, 

 through the disease having been introduced to the kennels by a 

 hound which had strayed away for several days, and on its 

 return was discovered to have been bitten." — (Veterinarian, 

 vol. xliv.) 



I think the reason for the supposition that fewer cases of 

 rabies are seen in bitches than in dogs, is to be found in what 

 seems to have escaped medical observers, namely, that there are 

 fewer of them in the world. Indeed, the same explanation can 

 be given on this point as on what appeared so strange to some 

 during the prevalence of the cattle plague, that fewer bulls than 

 cows were attacked by that malady. 



PATHOLOGY AND SYMPTOMS. 



The following circumstances in the pathology of rabies are 

 worthy of notice, namely — First, That the period of latency after 

 inoculation is very indefinite, and that it varies in different 

 animals : Second, That inoculation does not always produce the 

 disease, one-fourth of the inoculated animals generally escaping ; 

 and that the disease is not transmissible to man or other mam- 

 mifers : and Third, That, notwithstanding the strongest evidence 

 as to the microbic nature of the disease, the morphological 

 character of the microbe is as yet undetermined. Cocci 

 observed in the spinal cord of rabid dogs have been described 

 by Babes {Lcs Bacterics, 1886), cultures from which were 

 said by liJabes to communicate the disease. Babes also 

 describes a short bacillus. And again it is said that very fine 

 bacteria have been isolated from the brain, cultures from which 

 gave the disease. Eesearches are being still carried out which 

 will in time doubtless determine the nature of the microbe. 

 Virulence is said to be destroyed in thirty hours at a tempera- 

 ture— 20°, and in moist heat at 100° in half an hour, and dessi- 

 cation in the air diminishes and even destroys the virulence in a 

 few days. This fact has enabled Pasteur to modify his method 



