'? 



26(> RABIES C A NINA, 



When the stomach is emptied, it usaaliy presents marks of 

 very intense inliammation. If the dog- has been destroyed 

 very early in the complaint, the inflammatory appearances 

 may not be very considerable, butj in every such instance 

 even, which has fallen under my notice, in some deg'ree or 

 other, they have still been present ; while, in those cases 

 where the animals had been suffered to die of the disease, 

 I never remember one instance in which the morbid appear- 

 ances were not considerable. The inner surface or rug-ous 

 coat of the stomach is often livid, and not unfrequectly 

 sprinkled over with pustular prominences: it is not unusual, 

 likewise, for it to present sphacelated ulcerous patches. I 

 have even seen an opening through its coats into the cavity 

 of the abdomen by the mortification present. The outer sur- 

 face is seldom kee from inflammation either, and which is usu- 

 ally particularly evident along the great curvature. The ve- 

 nal vessels are commonly turgid with dark blood, w hich is, 

 sometimes, by the intensitv of the inflammatory action, extra- 

 vasated between the membranous and muscular coats. There 

 are seldom many fluid contents present, — the mass of ingesta 

 usually absorbs what may be there ; bat when this is not the 

 case, and fluid contents are found, they invariably consist of 

 a dark coloured liquor not unlike coffee grounds. 



The intestinal tube is usually found with marks of disease 



also more important, because it may be found long- after death, when 

 the other marks have become blended in the universal decomposition 

 and decay of the body. I cannot exemplify this better, than by relating- 

 a circumstanee of my being sent for, to a considerable distance in the 

 country, to examine a suspected dog, who had been already buried three 

 weeks, but was now dug up for my inspection. All other marks to be 

 gained from the morbid anatomy had, of course, disappeared; and I 

 must have been left in doubt (for the dog had come some distance, had 

 bitten a child who was caressing him, and had been in consequence killed 

 on the spot; nothing, therefore, of his history was known), had it not 

 been for this unfailing criterion, which I found to exist, in this instance, 

 in its full force, and from which I was led, without fear of error, to de- 

 cide that the dog had been rabid. 



