1 66 Specific and Contagious Diseases. 



we hesitate to include the fox ? Surely when he is known 

 to be " on the mad march," it would be safe to bring him 

 down before he commits any serious damage. The 

 farmer sees such an animal now and again, his errand 

 being the spreading of the virus of rabies by means of 

 his bite, and on he goes again with a business purpose, 

 until he dies from exhaustion. Powder and shot accu- 

 rately applied have a strictly legitimate use in this direc- 

 tion. A grain of prevention is worth a hundredweight 

 of cure. 



Regulations to these ends properly enforced, aided by 

 useful information printed on the back of the annual 

 Dog Licence, would prevent many mistakes, and bring 

 the disease within a small and manageable compass. 



After all, rabies is not so prevalent, except in the dis- 

 ordered imagination of persons ignorant ot the disease, 

 as is generally believed. Among the three hundred 

 thousand dogs which have passed through the home at 

 Battersea in twenty years, the Manager informed Dr. 

 Gordon Stables that he had never seen one suffering 

 from rabies. The majority of animals destroyed tor 

 supposed rabies are doubtless epileptics, and such results 

 are inevitable so long as pohcemen rank as scientists in 

 such matters. 



The rastetirian System.— ThQ utterly futile nature of 

 remedies propounded for the cure of hydrophobia in 

 the human subject has led to diligent search for others. 

 The great difficulty which confronts the practitioner is 

 the extremely rapid and fatal course after direct inocula- 

 tion. In utter defiance of the physiological action of 

 remedies the fell disease proceeds without deviation, and 

 the inevitable end in death cannot be averted. Thus 

 far internal remedies have failed, but the lact has stimu- 

 lated research in other directions. The disease has been 

 studied from other aspects. Its existence is beUeved by 

 some to depend upon the presence of a microbe, but 

 Pasteur, whose investigations have been extensive, has 

 not endorsed the view. His efforts were directed towards 

 sterilising the poison within the system of the person 

 bitten by the mad dog. Briefly, the operation consists of 



