RABIES CANINA. 225 



Rabies Canina, or Madness, in Dogs. 



The popular and long-received name oi madness has now 

 given place to the more classical term rabies*. The rabid 

 malady is, unquestionably, one of great antiquity ; for we 



* Rabies, however, it is hardly necessary to remark, is so far from 

 a new term, that it is a much older one than that of madness, as applied 

 to this immediate disease in dogs. We have rahidus canis, in Pliny, and 

 canis rahiosa, in Horace, as well as in many other authors. But if mad- 

 ness is an improper term for the complaint in question, because wild 

 delirium, rage, and ferocity, are so far from constant attendants on it, 

 that they are seldom present ; so it is evident that the Latin term rabies, 

 which signifies rage and fierceness (Iracunde ^ rabiose facerc aliqidd, 

 Cicero), must be equally so. Hydrophobia also, by which it has been 

 occasionally called, is completely a misnomer, because in brutes there is 

 never the slightest dread of water, either outwardly or inwardly applied. 

 Dr. Parry on this subjectsays, " To avoid the confusion attendant on the 

 " use of an abstract term, which includes many varieties of phenomena, 

 « arising from as many difi"erent causes, it might be proper altogether 

 « to annul the term Hydrophobia" (both in man and beast), " as the ex- 

 " pression of a genus, and to call the disease Rabies. Since, also, this 

 <' malady is neither peculiar to dogs, nor communicable only by them, 

 " some objection may be justly made to the use of the adjunct, Canina. 

 " For these reasons I proposed, nearly forty years ago, in a treatise 

 " now deservedly forgotten, to designate the disease by the appellation 

 «< of Rabies Contagiosa ; thus preserving the old generic term, and adding 

 « another expressive of its mode of production."— (Parry on the Rabies 

 Contagiosa, f. 119.)— To this it may be replied, that the mournful his- 

 tory of every hydrophobous case will shew that rabies is equally in the 

 human a palpable misnomer : a mild delirium may occasionally confuse 

 the regular order of ideas in both man and beast: but how seldom in 

 eit>>er,''particularly in the former, do we witness rage or fierceness ? and 

 whether contagious can be more justly applied to a disease that, al- 

 though received, cannot, as we believe, be again communicated by m.an, 

 admi'ts of doubt. We have yet, therefore, to seek for a correct term 

 for this anomalous malady. The French occasionally characterize the 

 rabid disease by the term Cynolisson or Cynolysson; and we have met 

 with Cynohj'ssa as an English name bearing the same import, as well as 

 Cynode'ctos(Kv^»iicrroi), for one bitten by a mad dog; but if ^Ccr^a may 

 be rendered, as it has sometimes been, torment, from the bite of any 



