SCIENCE OF FOXHUNTING. 283 



oil, with unvarying success^ if immediately applied, 

 or before the limbs or body begin to swell immo- 

 derately. We always used this remedy in the cub- 

 hunting season, when the hounds were frequently 

 bitten by these ancient enemies to the human race. 

 For the sting of wasp or bee — of which insects we 

 entertain a well-founded dread, from having been 

 nearly killed by them — oil or ammonia, if applied 

 immediately, will effect a speedy cure. 



We are told by sporting writers that hydrophobia 

 prevailed to an alarming extent in this country sixty 

 years ago — in the years 1806 and 1807, when the 

 weather was very changeable ; and worming was 

 then greatly in vogue, as a supposed precaution 

 against a mad dog biting. This idea of a worm 

 existing under the tongue of a dog, causing not 

 only a voracious appetite, but creating uneasy^ 

 irritable sensations, is one of the most absurd 

 theories which has ever entered into the head of 

 man to conceive. There is a fibrous or skinny 

 substance under a dog^s tongue — simply a mem- 

 brane connected with it — which medical men of the 

 old school pronounced to be a living worm, and the 

 excision of which was supposed to be sufficient to 

 counteract the evil consequences of rabies canina, 

 by preventing the dog biting another. Prevention 

 in such cases would be far better than cure ; but it 

 appears that the wormed dogs went mad quite as 

 readily as those that were not wormed, and were 

 not incapacitated, by the excision of this ideal 

 worm, from implanting the virus raging in their 

 own system to the bodies of any other animals. 



