284 THE DISEASES AND DISOEDERS OF THE OX. 



Bartholomew's Hospital, recorded a case of a patient afflicted 

 ■with this malady. Pilocarpine was used ; but, as has since 

 been observed in other cases, this drug was powerless to avert 

 death. No one who has witnessed such a sad spectacle as a 

 death from hydrophobia is likely ever to forget it. 



The helplessness of the physicians to control the effect^ of the 

 deadly virus affords matter for painful reflection, and those who 

 feel this most acutely will be the most ready to acknowledge the 

 value of the efforts M. Pasteur has made, and to believe that by 

 renewed attempts alone shall we be able to open completely the 

 door, probably now very nearly opened, with the key which this 

 able observer has perhaps all but succeeded in finishing. We 

 hail with feelings of satisfaction the continued efforts to 

 complete the work of this most able observer. A man may 

 be bitten by an apparently healthy dog, and the injury in- 

 flicted may be so trifling in its appearance as to be unheeded, 

 or treated in some simple way. A period of perhaps several 

 months may elapse, and the accident be almost forgotten, and 

 then distressing symptoms may show themselves suddenly. 

 After a brief space the doomed victim expires in agonies terrible 

 to witness, and incapable of being more than slightly alleviated. 

 Herein is a problem presented which, since the days of the 

 Asclepiadse, has perplexed scientists of all nations and every age. 

 In these days we are almost as it were in view of the goal, but 

 yet the clue seems not quite complete, and even perhaps still not 

 absolutely certain. 



The malady is nearly always propagated by the bite of a rabid 

 oreature ; and it is a most unfortunate characteristic of the 

 malady that even the most harmless animals, when suffering 

 from the disorder, seem to be impelled to bite any other animals 

 which may be near them, and in this way the infecting virus 

 contained in the saliva finds its way into the blood of any 

 unfortunate individual, whether man or animal, which may be 

 the object of attack. 



History. — We have evidence of the existence of rabies in the 

 earliest times. Plutarch mentions that the disease was first 

 observed in the days of the Asclepiadae, the descendants of 

 ^sculapius, the god of medicine. These men, who were priests, 

 prophets, and physicians, spread through Greece and Asia 

 Minor, and seem to have handed down the medical knowledge 



