OR MADNESS. 245 



saliva is tlie only secretion capable of producing this elfect we 

 have reason to believe, not only from an immense mass of 

 analogical testimony alforded by our own observation and that 

 of others, but also by the more conclusive evidence of innu- 

 merable experiments made in this and other countries with 

 the other fluids of the body, all of which failed to produce 

 the disease ; neither have we any reason to suppose that the 

 solids become more aflected with the materia morbi than the 



the solids, or by any of the fluids, save the saliva alone, can the conta- 

 gious rabies be generated. 



This opinion I consider materially strengthened by the circumstance 

 of having several times scratched or cut myself accidentally with my 

 scalpel, while examining the dead bodies of rabid dogs, and from which 

 no ill consequences resulted, although I never did more (and not always 

 that) than wash the wound with a little spirit. ]NT. Devalay, of \ erdnn, 

 wounded himself under similar circumstances, and, without any precau- 

 tions being taken, he experienced no ill effects from it. A similar 

 instance is also related in the Transactions of the Royal Society of 

 Paris, 1783. As a further proof, also, that the whole of the fluids, as 

 well Is the solids, of the trunk of the body are wholly incapable of 

 disseminating the disease by the closest intermixture, the Memoirs of 

 the Royal Society of Medicine of Paris for 1783, p. 333, may be quoted, 

 which contain an authentic account of an infant extracted from the 

 womb of a hydrophobous woman in the eighth month of her pregnancy, 

 which child lived, and was reared. 



As a proof of the inherent capability of the morbid salivary secre- 

 tion to produce rabies, the experiments of Dr. Zinke, of Jeua, afford 

 conclusive evidence. A dog, inoculated in the fore legs with rabid sali- 

 vary virus, and to which belladonna was daily given, died on the eighth 

 day Another, who was inoculated with morbid saliva, mixed with a 

 strong solution of arsenic, wholly escaped ; while a cat, inoculated 

 with the same saliva, diluted with a tincture of cantharides, beeame 

 rabid nine days after. A rabbit was inoculated with a mixture of rabid 

 saliva and volatile alkali ; it died on the eleventh day. Another, ino- 

 culated with virus and human saliva, escaped disease. A dog, inoculated 

 with the same morbid saliva, mixed with a diluted solution of phospho- 

 rus, although he became sick on the fifth day, nevertheless escaped in- 

 fection. A cock, inoculated with the same saliva, mixed with some of 

 the gastric juice of a cat, died on the fourteenth day. 



