BABIES. 1 



THE DOG, AXD ITS VARIETIES; 



[rabies. 



stopped to drink, and tried to find the inaii 

 acrain when he irot over. As a matter of 

 course, it will be asked, how do we know the 

 dog was really mad. And it would have been 

 well if it had never been proved, as it cost the 

 life of one fellow-creature, besides a great 

 number of sheep, dogs, and some beasts. 

 That the dog was mad, therefore, there could 

 not be the smallest doubt, and yet he had no 

 dread of water whatever. 



The symptoms of rabies, however, deviate 

 greatly in accordance with the different tem- 

 peraments of dogs. Such as are subject to 

 fits will be at one moment scouring the fields 

 in apparently excellent condition, but all at 

 once will make a dead stop, gaze intently and 

 wildly at some fancied object, then suddenly 

 fall into convulsions, from which (if a little 

 water is dashed in the face) they will soon 

 recover, and be as well next day as if nothing 

 had happened. 



With a rabid dog, however, it is quite differ- 

 ent. There are always premonitory symptoms, 

 the most prominent of which are a depraved 

 appetite, the animal ravenously devouring 

 its own, as well as human excrement, sticks, 

 cinders, mud, and all kinds of filth, which, in 

 a healthy state, it would avoid. In some 

 breeds of spaniels, however, there have been 

 exhibited exceptions to this rule. 



The next important symptom, and one 

 which may, perhaps, be considered as the 

 most demonstrative, is an insatiable thirst, and 

 an eager craving after its own and other dogs' 

 urine, searching in every corner, and, wherever 

 one dog has wetted, greedily licking it up. 

 This disgusting act is never found in the 

 healthy animal. 



We think this symptom so decided a proof 

 of rabies, that we should at once have the 

 animal destroyed, however valuable it might be. 



For a disease so terrible, no efforts should 

 be spared to find out the means of either pre- 

 venting or counteracting its effects. In ac- 

 complisliing tliis, even the labours of science 

 have, in a great measure, been unavailing ; for 

 a curative agent has, we believe, not yet been 

 discovered. 



The following singular account of the dis- 

 covery of a supposed antidote, however, ap- 

 peared some years ago in several continental 

 newspapers, as an extract from the Berlin 

 476 



State Gazette. We give it as it appears in 

 the small work of Mr. Eichardson : — 



In the year 1813, when Maraschetti, an 

 operator in the Moscow hospital, was visit- 

 ing the Ukraine, fifteen persons applied to 

 him for relief on the •same day, all having 

 been bitten by a rabid dog. Whilst the 

 surgeon was preparing such remedies as sug- 

 gested themselves, a deputation of several old 

 men waited upon him, with the request that 

 he would permit a peasant, who had for some 

 time enjoyed considerable reputation for his 

 success in treating cases of hydrophobia, to 

 take these patients under his care. The fame 

 of this peasant, and his skill, were known to 

 M. Maraschetti, and he acceded to the request 

 of the deputation on certain conditions: in 

 the first place, that he himself should be pre- 

 sent, and made cognizant of the mode of treat- 

 ment employed ; secondly, that proof should 

 be given him of the dog that had injured the 

 sufferers being really rabid — and then that he, 

 the surgeon, should select one of the patients 

 to be treated by himself according to the ordi- 

 nary course adopted by the medical profession. 

 This might, at a hasty view, be deemed an 

 improper tampering with human life on the 

 part of the Eussian surgeon ; but, when the 

 admitted hopelessness of all remedies is recol- 

 lected, the reader will refrain from animadver- 

 sion. M. Maraschetti selected, as his own 

 patient, a little girl of six years old ; the other 

 condition was duly complied with: no doubt 

 could exist of the genuine rabies of the dog, 

 which perished shortly afterwards in extreme 

 agony. 



The peasant gave to his fourteen patients a 

 decoction of the tops and blossoms of the 

 broom plant {Flor. Genistce lutece tinctoricc), 

 in the quantities of about a pound and a-half 

 daily ; and twice a day he examined beneath 

 their tongues, where, he stated, small knots, 

 containing the virus, would form. Several of 

 these knots did eventually appear, and, as 

 soon as they did so, they were carefully opened 

 and cauterised witli a red-hot wire ; after which 

 the patients were made to rinse their mouths, 

 and gargle with the decoction. The result 

 was, that all the patients— two of whom only, 

 and these the last bitten, did not show the 

 knots — were dismissed, cured, at the expiration 

 of six weeks, during which time they had con- 



