RABIES, OR MADNESS. 101 



come the paroxysm ; but it came on almost before I could toucn him, o-hen 1 

 approached him on the other side. 



These mild cases, however, are exceptions to a general rule. They are few and 

 far between. The horse is the servant, and not the friend of man; and if his com 

 panion yet an oppressed one. In proportion to his bulk he has far less of that 

 portion of the brain with which intelliirence is connected — less attachment — less 

 gratitude. He is nevertheless a noble animal. 1 am not speakintr disparagingly of 

 him; but I am comparing him with — next to man — the most intellectual of all quad- 

 rupeds. There is neither the motive for, nor the capability of, that attachment which 

 the dog feels for his master, and therefore, under the influence of this disease, he 

 abandons himself to all its dreadful excitement. 



The mare of xVfr. Karslake, when the disease was fully developed, forgot her 

 former drooping, dispirited state: her respiration v.as accelerated — her mouth was 

 covered with foam — a violent perspiration covered every part of her, and her screams 

 would cow the stoutest heart. She presently demolished all the wood-work of the 

 stable, and then she employed herself in beating to pieces the fragments, no human 

 being daring to expose himself to her fui-}'. 



The symptoms of the malady of Mr. Moneyment's pony rapidly increased — he bit 

 everything within his reach, even different parts of his own body — he breathed 

 laboriously — his tail erect — 'screaming dreadfully at short intervals, striking the 

 ground with liis fore-feet, and perspiring most profusely. At length he broke the top 

 of his manger and rushed out of the stall with it hanging to his halter. He made 

 immediately towards the medical attendant, and the spectators who were standino-by. 

 They fortunately succeeded in getting out of his way, and he turned in the next stall, 

 and dropped and died. 



A young veterinary friend of mine very incautiously and fool-hardily attempted to 

 ball a rabid horse. The animal had previously shown himself to be dangerous, and 

 had slightly bitten a person who gave him a ball on the preceding evening: he now 

 seized the young student's hand, and lifted him from the ground, and shook him, as 

 a terrier would shake a rat. It was with the greatest difficulty, and not until the 

 grooms had attacked the ferocious animal with their pitchforks, that they could com- 

 pel him to relinquish his hold ; and, even then, not before he had bitten his victim to 

 the bone, and nearly torn away the whole of the flesh from the upper and lower sur- 

 faces of the hand.* 



There is also in the horse, whose attachment to his owner is often comparatively 

 small, a degree of treachery which we rarely meet with in the nobler and more intel- 

 lectual dog. A horse that had shown symptoms of great ferocity was standino- in the 

 corner of his box, with a heaving flank, and every muscle quivering from the degree 

 of excitement under which he laboured. A groom, presuming on the former obedience 

 of the animal, ventured in. and endeavoured to put a headstall upon him. Neither 

 the master nor myself could persuade him to forbear. I was sure of mischief, for I 

 had observed the ear lying flat upon the neck, and I could st,e the backward glance 

 of the eye ; I therefore armed myself with a heavy twitch stick that was at hand, and 

 climbed into the manger of the next box. The man had not advanced two steps into 

 the box before I could see the shifting position of the fore feet, and the preparation to 

 spring upon his victim ; and he would have sprung upon him, but my weapon fell 

 with all the force I could urg-e upon his head, and he dropped. The man escaped, 

 but the brute was up again in an instant, and we trembled lest the partition of the 

 box should yield to his violence, and he would realize the graphic description of Mr. 

 Blaine, w^hen he speaks of the rabid horse as " levelling everything before him, him- 

 self sweating, and snorting, and foaming amidst the ruins." 



I have had occasion more than once to witness the evident pain of the bitten part, 

 and the manner in which the horse in the intervals of his paroxysms employs himself 

 in licking or gnawing the cicatrix. One animal had been bitten in the chest, and he, 

 not in the intervals between the exacerbation, but when ttn. paroxysm was most 



* In the Museum of the Veterinary School at Alfort, is the lower jaw oi a r-Ujid borw 

 which was fractured in the violent efforts of the animal to do mischief. 

 9* 



