294 DISEASES OF TRUE INFECTION 



normal. The inner surface of the pericardium may show hemorrhagic 

 spots. The chambers of the heart, as well as the large blood vessels, are 

 filled with dark, imperfecth^ clotted l^lood. The liver and kidneys are 

 hypersemic. The spleen is always filled with blood, enlarged, and oc- 

 casionally streaked with hemorrhagic spots; the bladder is found to contain 

 little urine, and this on test is found to contain svigar. Cadiot was inclined 

 to consider glycosuria as a regular symptom of rabies and of patholog- 

 ical importance, but Rabreaux and Nicholas took the ground that while 

 sugar is apt to be in the virine of rabid animals, still its absence did not 

 mean the animal did not have rabies. 



The condition of the brain and spine was formerly supposed to pre- 

 sent some reliable indications of the disease, but according to the investi- 

 gations of the last few years it cannot be said that they present any constant 

 pathological alterations. They vary greatly and in some cases may pre- 

 sent no noticeable change at all. We frequently find hypersemia of the 

 covering of the brain and spinal cord, accompanied by slight hemorrhages, 

 and the brain and spinal matter itself contains more blood than usual and 

 is in a more or less oedematous condition. 



Kolesnikoff found on microscopic examination of the walls and neigh- 

 boring vessels of the brain (of dogs which have died with rabies) an accu- 

 mulation of lymphoid cells and extravasated red blood corpuscles. The 

 accumulation of discolored cells and red corpuscles in the small blood ves- 

 sels of the walls and perivascular chambers indicates to a certain extent a 

 condition which in rabies is of pathological importance. They are un- 

 doubtedly symptoms of inflammation. These changes vary in different 

 cases. According to Czoker, it was noticed to a very slight degree in dogs 

 affected with the furious form of rabies, but it was noticed to a marked 

 degree as soon as the disease developed the dumb form (the perivascular 

 spaces and their neighliorhood were filled with leukocytes). 



Babes found nodulated infiltration in the spinal cord of dogs that he 

 called nodules rabirjues (rabid nodules). Other observers have, however, 

 found them in distemper, ^'an Gehuchten and Xelis found in the cerel^ro- 

 spinal and sympathetic ganglion of a street dog that died of rabies defi- 

 nite lesions, such as infiltration, tumefaction and ecchymosis, and great 

 proliferation of the endothelial cells of the capsule that covers the gang- 

 lionary cells, and emigration of the mononuclear cells and a destruction 

 of the ganglionary cells (ncurophagy). The plexus nodus vagi is fre- 

 quently attacked. These alterations in the nerve tissues are not always 

 present in the disease and cannot be used as positive evidence of the dis- 

 ease. Valleea and Manonelian found similar infiltrations of the ganglia 

 in very old dogs, and other observers found these modifications in less 

 degree in other diseases, i^imilar alterations have been noticed in other 

 diseased conditions, such as chorea, tetanus, distemper and meningitis. 



