294 THE DISEASES AND DISOEDEES OE THE OX. 



tinuously, but in patches, and small spots of extravasated blood 

 being seen. These signs of the disease, however, may be 

 absent. 



Now, with regard to the measures to be taken, the first point 

 is that all animals whatsoever which are afflicted with rabies 

 should be at once slaughtered, in order to obviate the great risk 

 of the transmission of the disease to human beings. On no 

 account whatever must the flesh of an animal afflicted with 

 rabies be sold. It is well known that the virus of this disease 

 as occurring in the ox, horse, ass, and man, and, according to 

 some authorities, that of the hen and duck, has been the means 

 of conveying the disease to human beings. Hence those who 

 have to deal with any rabid animal cannot be too stringently 

 upon their guard. 



Although no microbes have yet been discovered in connection 

 with hydrophobia, the presumptive evidence of the existence 

 of them is very strong indeed. If two brains are brought to 

 Pasteur, the one from a rabid animal and the other from a 

 healthy animal, he can decide at once by the aid of the micro- 

 scope which is the rabid and which the healthy one. In both 

 are seen an immense number of molecular granules ; but those 

 in the medulla of the rabid animal are finer and more numerous, 

 and suggest the idea of a micro-organism of extreme tenuity, 

 in shape neither a bacillus nor a diplococcus. They are " dots.'* 

 As yet they have not, so far as we know, been cultivated outside 

 the living body. 



In the course of his experiments, Pasteur found that the 

 saliva of the mad dog did not always give rise to rabies, 

 and that the more virulent matter was situated in the brain and 

 spinal cord. Both forms of rabies, viz. "furious" and 

 *' dumb " rabies, arise from the same virus; but experimentally 

 "furious rabies" can be produced from "dumb rabies," and 

 vice versa. 



In the saliva of rabid animals the virus is found associated 

 with various micro-organisms, and the inoculations of this saliva 

 can give rise to death in one of three modes. 

 {a.) By the microbe of saliva. 

 {h.) By reason of excessive development of pus. 

 {c.) By rabies. 

 The medulla oblongata of human beings, as well as that of all 



