OR CANINE MADNESS. 195 



two following years it continued to rage also : after which, for 

 several subsequent years, it was less prevalent ; but it never be- 

 came apparently extinct or rare as before. In 1820 it was again 

 observed to be on the increase, and for three or four years con- 

 tinued alarmingly common, when it again moderated for a few 

 following seasons ; but since 1 828 its ravages have exceeded even 

 its former bounds. Of these latter visitations I have been a more 

 quiet spectator ; but of those which occurred between 1 805 and 

 1820, I was a very active one. The publicity which attached to 

 my attention to the diseases of dogs occasioned constant reference 

 to me on the subject, and threw such opportunities in my way of 

 observing this dire malady in all its varieties in both man and 

 beast, as had probably, at that time, never before fallen to the lot 

 of any individual whatever^**. These opportunities, I believe, I did 

 not neglect ; it was a field so little trodden, that the few truths 

 which had sprung up were choaked by error ; and the importance 

 of the subject at that time was such, that it became imperative on 

 those whose experience enabled them to do it to set the subject in 

 its true light, and to divest it of many gross and serious mistakes 

 that hung about it ; and which none but those whose opportunities 

 of observation were great, and whose inclination to profit by them 

 was also considerable, could do. Towards the close, therefore, of 

 1807, I placed before the public, in a Domestic Treatise on 

 Horses and Dogs, a detailed account of rabies ; and soon after, 

 being requested to furnish an account of it also for the Cyclopaedia 

 of Dr. Rees, a condensed form of it was there inserted. 



It becomes not me to say further of these accounts ; but others 

 have said of them, that they furnished the most faithful picture of 



^ Since that time, the opportunities of Mr. Youatt have been even much 

 greater than my own, uniting, as he was enabled to do, what he saw with me 

 with what he has subsequently seen ; and how well he has profitted by them, 

 the valuable papers he has written on the subject, now condensed into a 

 pamphlet, published by Messrs. Longman and Co., will testify : and to which 

 I would, by all means, refer the interested or inquisitive reader ; taking myself 

 this opportunity of expressing my obligations to the same source, for an ex- 

 tension of my mvn views of the matter, and for many valuable facts also. 



N 2 



