1026 THEORY OF HYDROPHOBIA. 



application of heat must not be continued after 

 the body has been raised to the normal standard 

 and the circulation restored, as it would then 

 diminish respiration and defeat the object in 

 view, which is to renovate the blood. When the 

 circulation has been restored, respiration and the 

 nutritive process may be augmented by sponging 

 the body with cold water, and by the free admis- 

 sion of cold air, which are so important in cases 

 of syncope, and whenever there is fever. It is 

 only, however, in the early stages and milder 

 forms of the disease that tetanus is attended with 

 fever, because respiration is too much dimi- 

 nished to produce reaction. Yet Dr. Edwards 

 relates a case on the authority of Dr. Prevost, 

 in which the temperature rose to 1 10*6. 



In regard to hydrophobia, it is still a problem 

 whether it is propagated by a specific and con- 

 tagious virus, or whether it be a modification of 

 tetanus, as supposed by Dernocritus and other 

 ancients. Perhaps there is no subject on which 

 the common sense of mankind has been more 

 signally perverted by superstitious and ground- 

 less fears than that of hydrophobia, if we except 

 the burning of poor old women for witchcraft. 

 Within a recent period, Magendie says it was no 

 uncommon thing to smother patients bitten by a 

 rabid animal, between two feather beds, or to 

 bleed them to death, with a view of speedily ter- 

 minating their sufferings. And I have been told 



