262 RABIES CANINA, 



The termination of the complaint is invariably fatal, but 

 the time it takes to produce this issue is variable : few die 

 sooner than the third day, and very fev^ survive longer than 

 the seventh. The averag-e number die on the fourth and 

 fifth days. In other rabid quadrupeds the existence is pro- 

 tracted to a similar period *. 



The morbid Anatomy of the rabid Dog forms a most im- 

 portant feature in a portrait of the malady, but one, that, till 

 of late, has been most unaccountably neglected t. It by no 

 means unfreqr.ently happens, that it is not until after a dog- 

 is dead that he is suspected of having been rabid, although 

 he may have bitten one or more persons. Under such cir- 

 cumstances, it is evident that it is of the utmost importance 

 to be able to decide, from an inspection of the dead body 

 alone, whether the disease did or did not exist. Fortunately 

 to those conversant with the morbid appearances peculiar to 

 these cases, this is not difficult. From the great number of 



and feax". I am by no means disposed to throw any one off his guard, 

 or to encourage an unwarrantable security, with regard to the peaceable- 

 ness of the temper in rabies. I would, on the contrary, strongly impress 

 on the minds of my readers, that there is a constant necessity for cau- 

 tion in these cases, from the irritability present , and likewise from a 

 peculiar treacherous disposition which very often exists, and cannot be 

 too much guarded against. These cautions I would as strongly incul- 

 cate for the security of the public, as I have already endeavoured to 

 combat the prejudices relative to the existence of a wild ferociovis man- 

 ner, so strongly characterised by the name of madness; to which both 

 the irritability and treachery are unlike in by far the majority of instances. 

 The treachery and irritability displayed, from whence alone arise what 

 danger exists, it is my particular wish to prove, are not dependent on 

 perfect alienation of mind, but are the efiects of either a momentary 

 impulse of anger, or of the instinctive wish to propagate the disease. 



* Mr. Meynell gives ten days as the frequent duration of rabies ; but 

 for one dog which lives ten days, one hundred do not reach the eighth. 



-{- In a celebrated French work, apparently wi'itten for thie express 

 purpose of collating all that was known in France on the rabid disease, 

 so late as 1823, no description whatever is attempted of the morbid ana- 

 tomy, and it is even mentioned as a somewhat extraordinary effort of ob- 

 servation that M. PoRTAT. had opened a rabid dog. — Trolhet, p. 108. 



