148 RABIES. 



time, but more slightly, in order to destroy any part that may not have 

 received the 'full influence of the first operation, or that, by possibility, 

 might have been inoculated during the operation. 



Mr. Smerdon, in the Medical and Physical Journal, March 1820, thus 

 reasons : " All the morbid poisons that require to lie dormant a certain 

 time before their effects are manifested, pass into the system through the 

 medium of the absorbents," (we somewhat differ from Mr. Smerdon here, 

 but his reasoning is equally applicable to the nervous system,) " and if the 

 absorbents are excited, their action is increased. I am satisfied that even 

 in a venereal sore the application of a caustic, instead of destroying the 

 disease, causes its rapid extension. Then," asks he, " if the virus on a 

 small venereal sore is rendered more active by the caustic, is it not highly 

 probable that the same law holds good with respect to the poison of 

 rabies?" 



The sooner the caustic is applied the better ; but I should not hesitate 

 to have recourse to it even after the constitution has become affected. It 

 is related in the Medico-Chirurgical Annals of Altenburg (Sept. 1821), 

 that two men were bitten by a rabid dog. One became hydrophobous and 

 died ; the other had evident symptoms of hydrophobia a few days after- 

 wards. A surgeon excised the bitten part, and the disease disappeared. 

 After a period of six days the symptoms returned. The wound was ex- 

 amined ; considerable fungus was found sprouting from its bottom. This 

 was extirpated. The hydrophobic symptoms were again removed, and the 

 man did well. This is a most instructive case. 



In the Journal Pratique de Medecine Veterinaire, M. Damalix gives an 

 interesting account of the effect of a bite of a rabid dog on a horse. On 

 the 8th of July, 1828, a fowl-merchant, proceeding to the market of Col- 

 mar, was attacked by a dog, who, after some fruitless efforts to get into 

 the cart, bit the horse on the left side of the face, and fled precipitately. 

 A veterinary surgeon was sent for, who applied the cautery to the horse, 

 gave him some populeum ointment, and bled him. Everything appeared to 

 go on well, and on the 16th the wounds were healed. 



On the 25th a great alteration took place. The horse was careless and 

 slow ; he sometimes refused to go at all, and would not attend in the least 

 to the whip, which had never occurred before. In the evening the wounds 

 opened spontaneously, an ichorous and infectious pus run from them ; 

 there was salivation and utter loss of appetite : strange fancies seemed to 

 possess him ; he showed a desire to bite his master. The veterinary sur- 

 geon might approach him with safety ; but the moment his owner or the 

 children appeared, he darted at them, and would have torn them in pieces. 

 The disease now took on the appearance of acute glanders ; livid and 

 fungous wounds broke out ; the stable was saturated with an infectious 

 smell, the horse refused his food, or was unable to eat. The mayor at last 

 interfered, and the animal was destroyed. In the Treatises on The Horse, 

 Cattle, and Sheep, in former volumes, accounts are fully given of this 

 dreadful malady in these animals. It may not be uninteresting to give a 

 hasty sketch of it in some of the inferior classes. 



Italics in the Rabbit. I very much regret that I never instituted a 

 course of experiments on the production and treatment of rabies in this 

 animal. It would have been attended with little expense or danger, and 

 some important discoveries might have been made. Mr. Earle, in a case 



