248 RABIES CANINA, 



cog-en t may be the arguments made use of to support these 

 theories, and however specious may be the appearances of a 

 few isolated facts in their favour, when weighed against the 

 vast body of evidence and the numerous experiments col- 

 lected from authorities the most imposing, they operate little 

 or nothing against the conviction, that the saliva of a rabid 

 animal, and the saliva onl}^ is capable of exciting hydropho- 

 bia in man, or madness, as it is called, in other animals. 



Having thus traced the rabid poison from its rise and ori- 

 gin to its insertion into the animal body, let us now proceed 

 to inquire, what are the chances that it will prove baneful • 

 what time usually intervenes between its insertion and active 

 operations ; and, when so acting, what are the symptoms it 

 produces, and what its supposed modus operandi? 



It is fortunate, that, out of the numbers bitten by a rabid 

 animal, many escape without infection. A variety of circum- 

 stances may tend to this favourable issue, among which 

 may be reckoned the intervention of substances between the 

 biter and the bitten ; as the wool of sheep, and the thick 

 hair of some dogs *. Another cause occasionally operates, in 



specific) perpetuating an account like the following : — " A farmer, in my 

 ** neighbourhood, lost a cow by the black water and yellows, that is, a 

 *' disease with jaundice. This cow he gave to be eaten by his pigs, 

 " consisting of a sow, and three pigs ten months old, and five of two 

 " months. Within two or three weeks afterwards, one, which was ten 

 " months old, and the master pig, and which had therefore eaten more 

 " than either of the rest, became furiously mad," &.c. What became of 

 the mistress pig ? One would suppose that the old lady would have had 

 her share. Of what weak materials even great men often build their 

 theories ! 



* In the human subject, there is reason to suppose that the interposed 

 dress wipes the saliva from the teeth, and saves many who would be 

 otherwise fatally inoculated. But, independent of this, there appears 

 to be much less constitutional liability in the human subject to receive 

 the rabid contagion than exists in the brute. Out of twenty persons, 

 bitten by one dog, Mr. Hunter informs us (although no prophylactics 

 were employed), one only became hydrophobous. Dr. Vaughan relates, 

 that between twenty and thirty persons were bitten by another dog, out 

 of which number also one only was infected. If it were, however, pos- 



