260 INJURIES. 



There are two gentlemen to whom the profession and the 

 pnblic are obliged for the information on this subject : I 

 mean Mr. Blaine and Mr. Youatt. Both these writers dis- 

 believe that rabies is producible in the horse in no other 

 way than by inoculation. 



Symptoms. — " Its attack," says Mr. Youatt, " is most sudden. The 

 horse will go out apparently well ; all at once he will stop, tremble, heave, 

 paw, stagger, and fall. Almost immediately he will rise, draw his load a 

 little farther, again stop, look about him, back, stagger, and fall. This can 

 scarcely be confounded with megrims, for the horse is not a single moment 

 insensible ; and, after seemingly recovering, possibly falls twice or thrice 

 before he can be led home. The sooner he is led home the better ; for the 

 progress of the disease is as rapid as the first attack is sudden. In many 

 cases, perhaps the majority of them, a state of the highest excitation 

 speedily ensues : the horse kicks and plunges in the most violent manner ; 

 he is then quiet for awhile, recognizes his attendant, is sensible to his 

 caresses, and looks most piteously at him. A rabid horse belonging to 

 Mr. Keat pressed his head repeatedly against me ; then, without the 

 slightest notice, he plunged and fell. Sometimes he is mischievously dis- 

 posed. He will furiously seize and bite other horses, and even his 

 attendants; and as Mr. Blaine well describes it, 'will level with the 

 ground everything before him, himself sweating, and snorting, and 

 foaming amidst the ruins.' — Staggering and palsy of the hinder ex- 

 tremities soon succeed. I once saw a mare sitting on her haunches, and 

 unable to rise, yet pawing furiously with her fore feet. The disease, 

 however, quickly runs its course, and rarely extends beyond the third 

 day. In two cases I fancied I saw something very much resembling 

 hydrophobia. The thirst was excessive, but the act of swallowing was 

 performed with a forced gulping effort, and suddenly the head was 

 snatched from the pail with a strange contraction, a kind of risus 

 sardonicus of the lips." 



The following case is related by Mr, C. Marshall, V.S., London, in 

 vol. vii of ' The Veterinarian :' — "On Thursday evening, April 17, 

 1834, a message was sent to me by Mr. Reynolds, that 'his old horse was 

 very ill, and had something sticking in his throat.' I was from home, and 

 could not attend before Friday morning. I found the horse foaming, 

 breathing very laboriously, tail erect, screaming dreadfully at short 

 intervals, striking the ground with his fore feet, and perspiring most 

 profusely. He would get into the manger, and strike his head against the 

 wall, cringing and drawing himself up as though there was some obstruc- 

 tion in the ccsophagus. He was continually biting the top of his stall, and 

 when I approached him, he tried to run at nie, I considered him to be 



