EXTRACT XLI. 



HYDROPHOBIA. 



A SHORT consideration of the subject of that dreaded and 

 dreadful disease, hydrophobia, seems to us likely to yield 

 valuable results when conducted by the light that can be 

 shed by the foregoing views. 



Let us, therefore, first remark that the dog, with its 

 kindred species the wolf, seems especially prone, in conse- 

 quence of its anatomical peculiarities at least so far as 

 its olfactory organs are concerned to take, and give, that 

 disease. Thus, accepting, of course, the truth of what 

 has been already referred to, that from the mouth of the 

 animal a direct passage or passages run through the 

 anterior palatine or incisor canals, and thence, in unbroken 

 continuity, along the cavities of the "organs of Jacobson" 

 to the base of the skull. In the lining membrane of these 

 organs a portion of the olfactory nerves of either side, 

 along which the virus of the disease finds a passage, is 

 distributed, and, consequently, a direct route is open into 

 the interior of the cerebro-spinal cavity, independently of 

 the communication maintained by the main body of the 

 olfactory nerves and tracts, where, after incubating for a 

 longer or shorter period, the materies morbi gathers 

 strength and virulence enough to produce the pathog- 

 nomonic symptoms and pathological changes characterising 

 the matured disease. 



The cerebro-spinal fluid having become surcharged, a 

 retrogressive movement of it is commenced along the 

 channels by which the original infection was imbibed, as 

 well as all other effluent channels, and then the affected 



