128 RABIES. 



CHAPTER VII. 



RABIES. 



WE are now arrived at one of the most important subjects in veterinary 

 pathology. In other cases the comfort and the existence of our quadruped 

 patients are alone or chiefly involved, but here the lives of our employers, 

 and our own too, are at stake, and may be easily, and too often are, com- 

 promised. Here also, however other portions of the chain may be over- 

 looked or denied, we have the link which most of all connects the 

 veterinary surgeon with the practitioner of human medicine ; or, rather, 

 here is the circumscribed but valued spot where the veterinary surgeon 

 has the vantage-ground. 



In describing the nature, and cause and treatment of rabies, it will be 

 most natural to take the animal in which it oftenest appears, by which it 

 is most frequently propagated ; the time at which the danger commences, 

 and the usual period before the death of the patient. 



Some years ago a dog, naturally ferocious, bit a child at Lisson Grove. 

 The child, to all appearance previously well, died on the third day, and 

 an inquest was to be held on the body in the evening. The Coroner 

 ordered the dog to be sent to me for examination. The animal was, con- 

 trary to his usual habit, perfectly tractable. This will appear to be of 

 some importance hereafter. I examined him carefully. No suspicious 

 circumstance could be found about him. There was no appearance of 

 rabies. In the mean time the inquest took place, and the corpse of the 

 child was carefully examined. One medical gentleman thought that there 

 were some suspicious appearances about the stomach, and another believed 

 that there was congestion of the brain. 



The owner of the dog begged that the animal might not be taken from 

 him, but might accompany him home. He took him home and destroyed 

 him that no experiments might be made. 



With great difficulty we procured the carcass, and from some inflamma- 

 tory appearances about the tongue and the stomach, and the presence of a 

 small portion of indigestible matter in the stomach, we were unanimously 

 of opinion that the dog was rabid. 



I do not mean to say that the child died hydrophobous, or that its death 

 was accelerated by the nascent disease existing in the dog. There was 

 probably some nervous affection that hastened the death of the infant, and 

 the dog bit the child at the very period when the malady first began to 

 develope itself. On the following day there were morbid lesions enough 

 to prove beyond doubt that he was rabid. 



This case is introduced because I used afterwards to accompany every 

 examination of supposed or doubtful rabies with greater caution than I 

 probably had previously used. 



It is occasionally very difficult to detect the existence of rabies in its 

 nascent state. In the year 1813, a child attempted to rob a dog of its 

 morning food, and the animal resisting the theft, the child was slightly 

 scratched by its teeth. No one dreamed of danger. Eight days after- 



