OR MADNESS. 269 



readily overcome by an examination of the body, joined to 

 other circumstances gathered relative to the disease. During- 

 all other periods of distemper, except this, no irritability, nor 

 change of habit or manner, so common to rabies, is ever 

 present. The spasmodic twitchings, and the discharge from 

 the eyes, in rabies, can hardly ever, it is supposed, be con- 

 founded with distemper, even by the most unobservant, be- 

 cause, as this latter disease is an attendant on young dogs, 

 so, in them, rabies is always characterised by extreme quick- 

 ness of manner, constant irritability, and a restless, unceasing 

 disposition to escape, which appearances are none of them 

 usually present in distemper. The slow attack, the previous 

 emaciation, and the constant hard dry cough, will also serve 

 to distinguish distemper from rabies. The extreme rarity of 

 tetanus in dogs, renders it not very likely to be confounded 

 with madness ; and when it does attack, no mental irritability 

 is present, neither is there any tumefaction of throat, or pa- 

 ralysis of the jaw: the tetanic spasm returns also at uncer- 

 tain intervals. Tetanus, when it does occur, can commonly 

 be traced to some local injury received; and when it cannot, 

 as soon as death relieves the sufferer, an inspection of the 

 body at once discovers the difference. Colic, from the action 

 of lead, produces excruciating pain, unknown to rabies; 

 the pain returns also at uncertain intervals, and, although 

 plaintive moans are often heard, barking or howling is 

 always absent; the temper is never affected, but the animal 

 is more than usually passive, neither are the jaws paralysed. 

 Active purging also relieves this, but is totally inert in the 

 other. 



Having already endeavoured to shew that the rabid poison 

 is only received into the system by the actual insertion of it 

 by means of an abraded surface, it will now be our endea- 

 vour to inquire its modus operandi when received there. 

 This subject has occasioned a diversity of opinions, but the 

 most popular view of it is, that the rabid virus is at once 

 mixed with the blood by the absorption of the lymphatic vessels, 

 and that it afterwards exerts its morbid agency principally on 



