140 THE DISEASES OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



dogs, 30 to that from cats, 31 of wolves, 10 of foxes, and 1 to that 

 from a cow." 



As regards that part of the human organism which has been most 

 frequently bitten, Bollinger further says that, in 495 cases, 263 = 

 53 per cent, were bitten upon the superior extremities, hands and 

 arms ; 110 = 22 per cent, upon the head and face ; and 14 = 3 per 

 cent, upon the lower extremities. The bites upon the face appear 

 to be accompanied with a greater percentage of mortality than those 

 of other parts of the human body. An interesting yet horrifying 

 example of the devastations and suffering which may be caused by 

 a single rabid dog is given by the German veterinarians Oemler and 

 Guenther : 



" In December, 1871, the dog of a butcher showed indications 

 of being rabid. It was confined in a stable, where it tore in pieces 

 a goat and two geese, and finally freed itself by gnawing through 

 the stable-door. Before morning, it had bitten several dogs in the 

 village, and then commenced roaming over the country, passing 

 through villages, and in thirty hours encompassed some thirteen 

 German or fifty-two English miles before it was shot. On its way 

 it bit many living things. The people of the villages became terri- 

 bly frightened, from the fearful tendency to bite shown by the in- 

 furiated beast. Nine persons coming out of a church were sprung 

 upon and terribly bitten, one of them, a woman, to such a degree 

 as to necessitate conveying her home in a wagon. In all, fifteen 

 persons were bitten by this dog, mostly upon the head and face ; of 

 these eleven died of rabies." (Bollinger, loc. cit., p. 574.) 



It is highly probable that dogs can communicate this disease in 

 the earliest stages of its incubation, even before any very striking 

 phenomena of illness may betray themselves. This seems amply 

 sufficient to explain those cases of rabies in man which have followed 

 the bites of dogs in which no suspicious phenomena had been ob- 

 served, and which has led to the erroneous opinion that, if a dog 

 afterward '^ goes mad," the person bitten by it will also " follow 

 suit," and which has also led to the serious mistake of the immediate 

 killing of the dog. In this regard I once knew of a singular case 

 of superstition. A coachman in one of our leading families of Bos- 

 ton kept quite a number of bull-terriers, and indulged in fighting 

 them: he was engaged one day in the so-called "training" of one 

 of them, when the dog accidentally bit the man's hand. Like most 

 of this class of persons, the man was strongly superstitious with ref- 

 erence to the bite from a dosr : he had heard that a sure means to 

 prevent himself from ever becoming mad was to cut the heart out 



