108 ON RABIES AND ITS EFFECTS. 



ON RABIES, OR MADNESS, 



AND THE EFFECTS OF THE MILK OF RABID AND DISEASED 



ANIMALS. 



Mr. Youatt says that " the poison of all rabid animals 

 seems to reside in the saliva." Who ever heard of the ani- 

 mal's horns, the teeth, or saliva being mad,, without the whole 

 animal being sympathetically affected ? Is not. the saliva a 

 secretion from the blood, (secreted by the salivary glands,) 

 and is not the virus first absorbed and taken up by the lac- 

 teals, from thence going the rounds of the circulation ? 

 When any kind of poison is absorbed, the whole secretions 

 become vitiated : thus the bile, blood, urine, and milk, all 

 become deranged. For proof of this, see B. M. Recorder, 

 vol. vii. p. 101. " If the Rhus Toxicodendron, called poison 

 sumac, poison oak, &c, is eaten by cattle or horses, the males 

 usually die, the females sometimes escape ; the animals that 

 drink of their milk, or eat butter or cheese made from it, usu- 

 ally have the disease ; and the dogs, hogs, buzzards, &c, that 

 eat the flesh of these animals, die of it. And the fumes of 

 the candles made of the tallow of the cattle that have died of 

 it frequently communicate the disease. Persons who skin 

 the animals often take it." What folly, then, to prate about 

 the salivary glands being inoculated, to the exclusion of other 



day, is a matter for reproach. The melancholy triumph of disease over its 

 victims (in England amounting in neat cattle to $50,000,000) shows that the 

 science is mere moonshine ; that in regard to its most important objects, 

 (the cure of disease,) it is mere speculation, rich in theory, but poverty-strick- 

 en in its results. Hence we have not only proof that the American people 

 ought to be reformers, but, as interested individuals, we have great encour- 

 agement to be such. The author dates his conversion to the true, or physio- 

 logical faith, up to the moment when he emancipated himself from the the- 

 ory of the popular schools. The superiority of our practice consists in the 

 agents used, which are harmless and efficient ; whereas the agents which 

 he formerly used constituted a class of deadly poisons. For the proof of the 

 success of our present system over that of the old, we refer the reader to 

 some of our patrons, whose names will be found in the Appendix. 



