208 RABIES CANINA, 



was then, in the opinion of many, confined to them^''. Other facts 

 are on record which have brought man within the propagating 

 class^* : the horse, badger, and pig, also are more than suspected ; 

 and the result has been, that Mr. Youatt states his full conviction 

 that " the virus of every rabid animal will communicate the dis- 

 ease." This gentleman's own opportunities for conclusion, united 

 with the ardour of his research, afford a presumption that such 

 may eventually be found to be the case : it, however, becomes us 

 to pause in the absence of conclusive evidence. Our extended 



^3 It was the opinion of Huzard, founded on a series of experiments, and 

 again repeated at Alfort, as well as of Professor Betti, of Florence, an expe- 

 rimentalist also, that herbivorous animals are incapable of producing the rabid 

 malady. Drs. Vaughan and Babington also equally failed to propagate it 

 from the herbivora. Others likewise of our most eminent medical practi- 

 tioners think the propagating power confined to such animals only as natu- 

 rally employ their teeth as weapons of offence. Sir Astley Cooper, and Mr. 

 Coleman also, I believe, thought thus ; and it must be allowed that there is a 

 great air of philosophy in the limiting the power of generating the disease to 

 the carnivorous and pugnatory classes. But it must, at the same time, be al- 

 lowed, that some objections present themselves to the theory ; one of which 

 is, that the human saliva has produced rabies by inoculation : to which, how- 

 ever, it will probably be replied, that man is half carnivorous ; he has also 

 canine teeth : by which mode of argument casuists may attempt to save the 

 credit of the theory as regards the horse, which has been said to have pro- 

 duced the disease ; for he also has canine teeth, and most certainly uses them 

 pugnaciously in retaining his hold first taken by his incisors. 



1* On the 19th of June, 1823, in the presence of numerous medical students, 

 MM. Majendie and Breschet, in the Hdtel-Dieu, absorbed some of the saliva 

 of a man then dying of hydrophobia by means of a bit of rag, and, conveying 

 it only twenty paces from the bed of the patient, they inoculated two healthy 

 dogs with it : one of these became rabid on the 27th of July, and bit two 

 others, one of which so bitten was attacked on the 26th of August. Mr. 

 Earle, of St. George's Hospital, also inoculated several rabbits with the 

 saliva of a woman with hydrophobia, some of which became rabid. Dr. 

 Zinche, of Jena, has proved that the common fowl can be made rabid by the 

 canine virus. Valentin. Let. sur la Rage, Jour, de Mxd., vol. xxx. This will 

 serve to strengthen the faith in the account of Mr. King, of Clifton, who pro- 

 duced rabies in a fowl by means of the saliva of an ox which had just died of 

 that complaint. 



