NOTITIA VENATICA. 93 



this book ■with information that can be so easily procured elsewliero, or 

 to gain to myself the imputation which has been laid to the charge of 

 Mr. Gillman, on his " Prize Dissertation," of wearing plumes gathered 

 from the " Memoir" written by Mr. Blaine upon this disease, and which 

 was afterwards inserted in " Rees' Cyclopaedia." 



At a later period, we find Mr. Youatt, who, in his early life, was a 

 partner of Mr. Blaine, bringing forward the subject in an enthusiastic 

 and masterly manner, in the pages of the " Veterinarian ;" and by the 

 scientific way in which he has exposed the absurd errors })y 

 which it has been surrounded, we may look forward with in- 

 creased hope that the day is not very far distant when a thorough 

 knowledge in every branch of a disease which is more to be dreaded 

 than any other in the whole range of veterinary practice, will not only be 

 firmly established, but that some certain remedy for it may also be dis- 

 covered, to which it may eventually yield.* Mr. Youatt, like his prede- 

 cessor, denies the possibility of the disease being propagated except by 

 inoculation, and which he distinctly proves by a long course of Avell- 

 digested reasoning and undeniably authentic anecdotes. t Of the nume- 

 rous instances of rabies showing itself in sporting dogs, and which have 

 come within the pale of mine own knowledge, the few following will 

 suffice to convince my readers that there is just reason for entertaining 

 the same opinion as Mr. Blaine and Mr. Youatt, upon the almost cer- 

 tainty of tlie disease being propagated by inoculation alone. What 

 makes the circumstances more extraordinary is, that they all happened 

 during the same year, namely, at the end of the winter of 1835-6, 

 which might give some persons the idea that it must have been some 

 kind of epizootic by Avhich the hounds were attacked, and not by the 

 real " rabies canina." But the fact that only one pack in each estab- 

 lishment was attacked Avoidd, I should suppose, with any reasonable 

 person, set that doubt at rest. At the close of the Avinter above-men- 

 tioned, the "bitch pack" of the Warwickshire hounds, then under the 

 management of Mr. Thornhill, shoM'ed evident symptoms of madness, 

 upon which they were taken out no longer, but each individual was 

 chained up separate from the rest, so that there could be no possibility 

 of their biting each other. After the space of about six weeks ten 

 couples died, or were destroyed, in a state of the most raging madness. 

 Amongst the dog hounds, which formed another pack, and were kept at 

 the same kennels — but of course in separate lodging-rooms and courts 

 — there was not one single instance of the malady showing itself, 

 although they had been fed from the same trough, breathed the same 

 air, and were exactly in the same state of condition, having, previous to 

 the malady brealdng out, worked alternate days. The disease had 



* In November, 1845, Professor Sewell, in the course of his lecture at the College, 

 Camden Town, said that " rabies canina" was incurable by the administering of any- 

 internal agent ; but that the remedy he had hitherto practised, and would still con- 

 tinue, was to bleed to exhaustion, and then renovate the patient, whether man or 

 beast, by an infusion of healthy blood. The poison produced inflammation on the 

 brain and spinal marrow. 



t See "Veterinarian" for July, 1838, 



