148 THE DISEASES OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



in Bavaria was 292,000, and 821 cases of suspected and genuine rabies 

 were recorded. In Vienna, from November, 1873, to August, 1875, 

 332 cases of canine rabies were reported. 



Wliile I have been unable to find any statistics of a similar trust- 

 wortlij character for our own country, it is not without interest 

 to know that " in 1860 we had 112,000 dogs recorded in Massachu- 

 setts ; and further, that for the year ending May 1, 1875, 11,489 

 were reported as having killed sheep vahied at $10,584.53." (Flint, 

 " Massachusetts Agricultural Eeport," 1878.) 



l*fotwithstanding the repeated publication of the phenomenology 

 of canine rabies, still the subject is of such vital importance to every 

 dog-owner, and to every citizen as well, that the more frequently it 

 is repeated the better it is for the community at large. 



Phenomena of Rabies Canina. 



The wound occasioned by the bite of the rabid dog heals in gen- 

 eral very quickly, leaving little or no indications of its presence be- 

 hind, unless it has been quite an extensive laceration. 



The smallest abrasion of the epidermis is sufficient for infection. 

 This fact, in unison with the rapid healing of such wounds, suffi- 

 ciently explains those cases which have been frequently quoted in 

 proof of the spontaneous generation of this disease, where rabid dogs 

 have died or been killed, and then been most carefully shaved, and 

 not the slightest indications of a wound of the cutis could be found. 



The period of incubation — that is, the time which elapses between 

 the bite and the appearance of the first suspicious phenomena — ex- 

 tends, in general, to from three to five weeks ; sometimes it extends 

 to as many months. In the other domestic animals the period of 

 incubation varies from two weeks to ten or even fifteen or sixteen 

 months. 



As should be well known to every dog-owner, rabies canina pre- 

 sents itself in two forms : as furious, and as still or dumb rabies. It 

 is not my purpose to enter into minute details with reference to this 

 disease, but rather to endeavor to attract attention to the most promi- 

 nent symptoms in which the disease manifests itself. 



Writers have, however, divided the disease into three stages, 

 and, as laymen might suppose that by these was meant three dis- 

 tinctly marked intervals, we will at once say that such do not exist, 

 and that, while the periods may be said to mark different stages of 

 development in the disease, yet these stages extend one into the 

 other so imperceptibly that no intermissions are observable. All 

 this dividing the phenomena of certain diseases into periods is more 



