WORMING. 315 



exposes the interposed lig-ameiitoiis matter, called a tvorm ; 

 on the extraction of which (by slitting- its cnticular envelope 

 behind it, from one end to the other), whole and unbroken, 

 depends the virtue of the operation. One end of the liga- 

 mentous substance being raised, it sometimes is, at a fortu- 

 nate or dextrous extraction, at once stripped off to the other 

 end; the violence made use of in doing" which, puts the sub- 

 stance on the stretch, so that, when removed from the mouth, 

 it necessarily recoils by means of its elasticity, and which na- 

 tural occurrence is even still adduced as a proof, with some 

 of the credulous, that it is itself a vermicular animal. 



Few well-informed persons, however, now believe so truly 

 ridiculous a matter as that this is or can be any thing of 

 the worm kind, or that it can possess any independent 

 life ; but many well-informed sportsmen still believe that the 

 extraction of this substance, by the operation just described, 

 called worming, will render the dog perfectly harmless in 

 case he should become rabid, or go mad, in future. 



In the rabid variety called dumb madness, I have had oc- 

 casion to show that the disease appears to consist of a speci- 

 fic attack on the bowels principally, and that, conjoined with 

 this, and apparently as a consequence of it, there is usually 

 present such a tumefaction of the parts around the after 

 mouth, and roots of the tongue, as frequently wholly inca- 

 pacitates the dog so affected from biting. When this takes 

 place in a dog which has been wormed, his harmless dispo- 

 sition is erroneously attributed to the previous worming; but 

 nothing is said or thought of the innumerable instances 

 which occur of dogs otherwise affected and proving mis- 

 chievous which have been duly operated on by worming. 

 Instances of this description fell under my notice continually, 

 during the prevalence of rabies. The incapability of the dog 

 to bite, and his having been wormed, are circumstances that 

 must often happen in the same animal, seeing that dumb 

 madness is a very usual form of the complaint, and worming 

 a very common practice among sportsmen : but such circum- 

 stances are wholly independent of each other, and they can- 



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