1032 PRACTICE OF M. BOUISSON. 



treatment, if adopted in the early stages of the 

 disease, that he should have no objection to be 

 inoculated with the saliva of a rabid animal.* 

 Now although it must be admitted, that there is 

 something romantic in the reason which Dr. 

 Bouisson assigns for going into the vapour bath, 

 and even a doubt whether his disease was not 

 owing more to fright than to the influence of the 

 woman's saliva, the practice he adopted was un- 

 questionably rational ; and when early adopted, 

 is calculated to remove the proximate cause of 

 nearly all spasmodic diseases, which I have shown 

 to depend on torpor of the circulation, and a 

 vitiated state of the blood, owing chiefly to a loss 

 or deficient supply of animal heat. 



* We frequently hear of individuals being attacked with hydro- 

 phobia several months, and even one or two years, after the bite 

 of a dog supposed to be rabid. But as it is now admitted by some 

 of the ablest veterinarians, that the latent period of the disease, 

 when communicated by inoculation, never exceeds twelve weeks, 

 it is probable that all the cases which occur at longer periods after 

 the bite are owing to some other cause, as in spontaneous hydro- 

 phobia. For it is contrary to all analogy to suppose that a poison 

 capable of producing such fatal effects, should remain latent for 

 one or two years. The popular belief that individuals affected 

 with this fearful malady bark like dogs, and even attempt to bite 

 their attendants, must be referred to the influence of imagination 

 and terror of the patient. 



