232 RABIES CANINA, 



such a complete tissue of error as this. I have before had 

 occasion to remark, that the very term of madness, by w^hich 

 the disease has been so long- and universally known, conveys 

 an idea of it in most instances remote from the truth. By 

 the term mad, persons naturally suppose that a dog-, affected 

 with the rabid malady, must necessarily be wild and furious ; 

 and in every written description it is so made out : but so far 

 is this from being- the case, that in hardly any instance in an 

 adult dog" have I observed a total alienation of the mind; on 

 the contrary, in the g-reater number, the mental faculties 

 have even been but little disturbed ; the unhappy subjects of 

 the complaint commonly know the voice of their master, and 

 are obedient to it, and that frequently to the very last mo- 

 ments of their existence. 



In other animals, however, it must be allowed, there is 

 more propriety in the term. Wolves seem to be ferocious 

 and wild, but not senseless. Pig-s labour under delirium : 

 even the peaceable sheep becomes not only delirious but fe- 

 rocious in this malady. In the rabid horse, the sig-ht is most 

 terrific ; I have seen one, during- his delirium, clear a six-stall 

 stable of racks, mang-ers, standing-s, and posts : every thing-, 

 but the bare walls, was levelled into ruins around him. 



But if madness can thus be proved an incorrect term, that 

 of hydrophobia, by which the brute rabies is sometimes 

 called, is still more remote from any thing- like critical ac- 

 curacy, and, in fact, is as inapplicable to it as the human 

 measles or small pox*. 



"his distress." — " He dies at the end of thirty or thirty -six hours, 

 " in convulsions."—" The dead body yields a most infectious odour :'' — 

 and, " the person who touches his body should wash himself well with 

 *' vinegar." Orfila, likewise, who is the French oracle as regards 

 poisons, says, "That men, horses, oxen, and pigs, become rabid with- 

 " out being bitten by a rabid animal." Every medical tyro knows the 

 contrary here. 



* This simple misnomer is, however, the least part of the mischief; 

 for, unfortunately, a dread of water has been considered, by many 

 persons, as the universal and grand characteristic of the complaint, as 



