OR MADNESS. 243 



next object is, therefore, to inquire what animals are tlius 

 capable o( receiving the rabid malady by communication. Our 

 own experience and authenticated written accounts teach us 

 that man, the horse, the mule, the ass, neat cattle, the 

 sheep, the goat, swine, the bear, the remaining members of 

 the feline genus, hares and rabits, are all of them liable to 

 it. Occasional mention has also been made of other animals, 

 and, from analogy, we are not warranted in concluding the 

 accounts untrue *. The feathered tribe have been long sup- 



the experiment is extracted from another source : — " A I'Hotel-Dieu de 

 " Paris, le 19 Juillet, 1813, MM. MagExNdie et Bkeschet, prirent de 

 " la salive avant la mort' du nomme Sarin (dans les veiues M. Du- 

 « ruYTREN injecta d'abord deux grains d'opium, puis quatre, ensuite 

 " huit grains dissous dans I'eau distillee) ; ils transporterent cette salive 

 <« a vingt pas de sonlet, k Paide d'un morceaux de linge, et en inocul^- 

 " rent "a deux chiens biens portans. L'un d'eux devint enrage le 17 

 « Juiliet, et en mordit deux autres, dont l'un etoit en plein rage, le 2G 

 *' Aout • ce qui porte a croire,que I'homme pent transniettre cette terri- 

 ««ble maladie." {Dissertation de M. Ch. Busnout, Paris, 1814, p. 27). 

 But, when it is considered that this experiment is in direct contradiction 

 to so many others, conducted with equal care, its evidence can only be 

 viewed in a doubtful light. 



With regard to a capability in other animals to communicate rabies, 

 still less weight is attached to the supposition, although this also has its 

 advocates. Were we to give credence to the vague accounts handed 

 down to us by persons who took no pains to examine into the truth, we 

 might believe M. Baccils, who mentions a gardener who died hydro- 

 phobous from the bite of a rabid cock, or M. Duplanil's account of a si- 

 milar event occasioned by a rabid horse **. It is also on record, that 

 the otter has communicated the disease ; but it is more than proba- 

 ble that these, and similar statements, are all of them founded in 

 error, and we are enabled to oppose to them the authority of the cele- 

 brated HuzARD, who has been at great pains to arrive at truth with 

 regard to this subject. He asserts, that herbivorous animals do not 

 communicate the disease, but the carnivorous only ; and that all the 

 experiments made by himself, or gained from others, had failed in pro- 



ducins; it. ■ 1 1 i > 



* Boerhaave describes it as occurring in the monkey (Aphonsm i \62). 



•• yU-.Stcvemor,, oi Komich, ^va. l,.lU'n by ^^ rabid hnr.c, but n.ncrcd no i„- 

 coiivcaiciici .— i'arr^, p. 187. 



