656 THE BOOK OF THE DOG. 



advice that, on a dog exhibiting any two or three of these, he should be, not destroyed, but 

 placed under supervision. 



Dogs do not, as the public suppose, at once go rabid and bite. The disease is very much 

 more gradual in its onset. Rabies in its first stage seems much more like an exaggerated form 

 of nervous irritability than anything else. A dog never looks iviser than when tie is beginning to 

 go mad. Mind and body seem struggling for mastery. The animal has a melancholy but 

 restless eye, a far-away, listless look. Any one accustomed to his ways can tell there is some- 

 thing wrong with him. He becomes restless, and strangely suspicious of everything and every 

 one, save his master, to whom indeed he shows an exaggerated affection, and from whom he 

 seems to plead for pity or help. He knows and feels he is ill, and cannot bear to be looked 

 at by any other animal. There are moments, at this stage of the disease, when he seems a 

 little delirious ; he will get up suddenly, and examine behind things, snap in the air, or 

 make a rush at nothing at all, but even then a word from his master will bring him back to 

 his senses, and to his master's feet. 



Once more, contrary to popular opinion, he does not fear water. He is not hydrophobic 

 (vSiop, water, and (/>o/9eoj, to fear). He will drink so long as he can swallow, and when, unable 

 to imbibe he will dip his poor parched open mouth into the water up to the eyes, in hopes it 

 may reach his throat. We say " parched mouth " on purpose, for it is nearly always so, although 

 there is generally at first a viscid or ropy saliva. The word foam is most misleading ; foam can 

 only be produced from healthy saliva, as when a dog is eating a biscuit, or running hard. At the 

 later stages of the disease the tongue will be dry, and sometimes nearly black. 



Food, at first, he may or may not refuse, but afterwards he has a strange desire to bite at 

 and swallow all sorts of deleterious matter sticks, stones, clay, bones, straw, cinders, glass, &c 

 This, we opine, is not from any depravation of appetite, but seemingly from an irrepressible 

 itching of the gums, from irritation of the nerves, which itching he must chew or bite some- 

 thing to relieve. 



Now, as long as he has the power to control himself, he will do so, and perhaps prefer to 

 hide away in dark corners ; but there comes the moment when the dread poison lashes him to 

 pained and awful fury. He barks in his agony a hoarse, peculiar bark, as we would naturally 

 expect, considering the inflamed and swollen condition of his larynx and pharynx. The very 

 act of barking gives such pain that the bark itself ends in a mournful, stridulous howl. 



The unhappy animal usually has a desire to escape, and rove the country, generally rushing 

 straight onwards, turning aside to bite at nothing, but spending its fury on any one, or any 

 animal especially, he may come in contact with. His whole appearance when on the march 

 his furious yet frightened eye, and pinched but serious features, and strange gait, if once seen are 

 not easily forgotten. 



The diagnosis is not difficult on the whole, yet there are many diseases which bear some 

 resemblance to rabies. Two cases have lately come under our notice, neither of them rabies, but 

 each presenting some peculiar features. One was a Scotch Terrier, and the history was simply 

 this He had been wounded by a cat which he killed on his master's lawn, and five days after 

 fell ill. There was the same emaciation you see in rabies, occasional curious howlings, and 

 satyriasis, as seen in his persistently licking the parts of the other dogs ; there was also more or 

 less of nervousness, but there were no hallucinations, and the howl was not the rabid howl, and 

 there was no attempt to bite, even while giving him medicine. He died, but we did not get the 

 chance of a post-mortem. 



The other case was that of a Newfoundland bitch of our own. In the morning she had been 



