1 5 8 Specific and Contagious Diseases. 



be secured if we cannot immediately suppress its exist- 

 ence. 



Rabid dogs, it has often been said, exhibit method in 

 their madness. A state of fury is uncommon or at least 

 associated only with certain forms of the disease; in 

 many cases the creature is perfectly docile, the owner 

 himself having not even the vestige of a suspicion against 

 his pet. Rabid dogs have been known to fondle, caress, 

 and lick the hands of their owners as on other occasions, 

 which in some instances have proved fatal, the virus from 

 the saliva gaining entrance to the system through a 

 scratch or other slight form of wound. They show their 

 intense dislike to other dogs in preference to human 

 beings as a rule ; even in sleep they rise and violently 

 rush at the object of their fury, which exists only in their 

 disordered imagination ; they will also snap as at flies, or 

 other unseen objects, and from apparently sound sleep 

 suddenly rising to the attack have been known to fall 

 exhausted by the effort. The desire for freedom is 

 peculiarly manifested, often with a degree of cunning for 

 which even the dog would scarcely be credited. Once 

 free he commences his wanderings, often covering 

 immense distances, and when unmolested returns to his 

 lair completely prostrate, or partially paralysed, and in a 

 short time wholly so. It is rare that he attempts violence 

 during this remarkable journey, but when provoked is apt 

 to commit fearful havoc. The wisest course, therefore, 

 when a dog is " on the march " and correctly recognised, 

 is to give him possession of the road, as in all probability 

 he will never molest any person. His evident desire is to 

 get aivay from the disease, and to this end he devotes 

 himself with a concentration of will that is remarkable in 

 the brute creation. 



In the furious sta^^es the dog is inclined to make 

 sudden attacks, the victim receiving one or more grips, 

 and probably thrown down or rolled over, the march 

 being resumed in search of others. Thus, in the space of 

 a single night, not only dogs, but a large number of 

 sheep are bitten, and being unobserved, the circumstance 

 has favoured the surmise that the disease had a spon- 



