236 RABIES CANINA^ 



disposed to attribute the impression made on the relators to 

 want of due inquiry, or to the erroneous information gained 

 from those around. Mr. Youatt, whose means of observa- 

 tions have been but little inferior to my own. 1 believe, is 

 decidedly of a similar opinion, as are also many of our most 

 eminent medical characters * ; and, although it cannot be 

 denied that there are those who maintain a different view of 

 the matter, yet, without questioning the ingenuity of the argu- 

 ments on which their opinions mainly rest, it will be found 

 that palpable facts, or well-conducted experiments, have not 

 been the means whereon such opinions have rested t. The 



and Mr. Oilman's case, on which he founds his opinion of spontaneous 

 rabies, is, without doubt, referrible to a similar want of correct inform- 

 ation on the confinement of the animal. •• 



* Among these may be mentioned, Drs. 'Vaughan, Hunter, and Houl- 

 STON. Dr. Bards LEV, also, who has examined the subject attentively, 

 in his Reports, states his full conviction that rabies never, in the present 

 day, owes its origin to spontaneous generation, nor to the operation of 

 climate, putrid aliment, excess or deprivation of food or water, want 

 of perspiration, worm under the tongue, or to any other agency save 

 that of infection. 



•f- Much of this discrepancy of opinion originates in our defective no- 

 sological distinctions. Spontaneous rabies, in the minds of its warmest 

 advocates, is often confounded with an affection certainlj'^ spontaneous, 

 and certainly of a wild and often furious character. This spontaneous 

 animal rabies of some authors, and the spontaneous human hydrophobia 

 of Sauvages, may arise from the local irritation of wounds, worms, colics, 

 particularly from lead, &c., or from the general irritations of tetanus, 

 epilepsy, &c., or the excitements of phrenitis, hysteria, gastritis, &.c. 

 A disease of this nature may be produced also by the bite of an infu- 

 riated animal not affected with the specific malady ; for it has been long 

 observed, that all animals inflicting a wound by their teeth, when under 

 great mental excitement, are apt to produce local and general symp- 

 toms of a peculiar nature, characterised by their severity, probably 

 arising from some morbid change taking place in the salivary juices. 

 Many experiments confirming this have been published by various au- 

 thors, but those detailed by M. Rossin, in the Mem. de VAcademie 

 de Turin, tom. 6, are very conclusive on this head. These affections 

 (which confine their effects to the immediate objects) ought to be distin- 

 guished from the specific and communicable rabid malady. 



It must, however, be allowed, there are authorities who (distinctly se- 



