OR MADNESS. 241 



mal bodies themselves, all which is in strict analogy with 

 what is daily seen in other contagious diseases. 



If, therefore, the disease owes its first origin to sponta- 

 neous generation, but the further continuance of it is not 

 effected bv this means, what are the immediate animals in 

 which it may be supposed to have thus spontaneously origin- 

 ated ? An accumulation of the experience of all ages testifies 

 that the disease more particularly belongs to the members of 

 the genera canis and felts, but whether to all the species of 

 each genus we are not at present aware. That the wolf*, 

 the doo-, and the fox t, become affected, and can communi- 

 cate the disease, we have sufficient proofs ; but whether any 

 other member of the feline genus, except the cat J, takes on 

 the communicable rabies, we are not aw^are. Neither have 

 we any thing more than conjecture to satisfy us, whether, in 

 the first instance, the disease originated in one of these spe- 

 cies and was communicated to the rest, or whether all were 

 orio-inallv liable to and suffered under a spontaneous origin of 



* Fortunately, the ravages of the rabid wolf are unknown among us ; 

 but in France, Spain, and Germany, they are but too common. His 

 savage nature makes him, under the excitement of this inflammatory 

 disease, highly ferocious, and he seeks objects of every kind wherein to 

 propagate his own sufferings j and as his size enables him to reach it, so 

 he commonly inflicts his wounds on the face, and thus more certainly in- 

 sures a fatal issue. The extent of some of these ravages may be gained by 

 reference to Astruc Mem. Montpellier, 1819; d'ARLic Recueil Perio- 

 dique,tom. 4; Baudot Mem. de la Soc. Roy. de Med. ; Gazette de Sante 

 dull Sep. 1813 ; Journal de Med., tom. 39 ; Histoire des Ravages causes 

 par Louve enragee, dans le departement de I'Isere en 1817 ; Trolliet. 



f Although we have sufficient proof that the fox becomes occasionally 

 rabid yet, 'either his inherent aptitude to receive it is less than that of 

 the dog, or his solitary habits exclude him from the attack : certain it 

 is, that vulpine rabies is very rare. 



* That a considerable inaptitude exists in the cat to receive the dis- 

 ease, is also certain, from the fact that dogs, under rabies, seek these 

 animals with an instinctive aversion, and great numbers must by these 

 means become bitten; yet a rabid cat is comparatively a rare ^occur- 

 rcnce. When rabies makes its appearance in the cat, it shews itself 

 with much of its mischievous character. 



