OR CANINE MADNESS. 2^23 



the miserable brute shakes his chain with extreme violence, and, 

 when confined without one, he will attempt by every means to 

 escape, and will force or gnaw his way out of his confinement in 

 a most surprising manner. The vessels that are placed before him 

 he overturns or breaks with mischievous alertness. 



A disposition to rove accompanies each variety of rabies ; but 

 as, in the dumb kinds, the paralysis, stupor, and prostration of 

 strength, are hindrances to it, so it is more particularly apparent 

 in the acute kind. This inclination does not usually shew itself 

 by an attempt to escape altogether, neither does it appear a deliri- 

 ous affection ; on the contrary, much method is displayed in it, 

 which makes it rather seem an instinctive disposition common to 

 all, to propagate the disease. In its early stages, before the 

 strength is much impaired, dogs will travel immense distances 

 under this impulse : such a one trots along, and industriously looks 

 out for every other dog within his reach or sight. Whenever he 

 discovers one, little or large, he first smells to him, in the usual 

 way of dogs, and then immediately falls on him, generally giving 

 him one shake only ; after which he commonly sets off again in 

 search of another object. The quickness with which this attack is 

 made very frequently surprises the bitten dog so much, as to pre- 

 vent his immediately resenting it : but nothing is more erroneous 

 than the supposition that a healthy dog instinctively knows a rabid 

 or mad one. I have watched these attacks in nmnerous cases, and 

 I have seen the mad dog tumbled over and over, without the least 

 hesitation, by others that he had himself fallen on. 



During this march of mischief, rabid dogs but seldom, however, 

 turn out of the way to bite human passengers ; neither do they so 

 often attack horses, or other animals, as their own species. Some- 

 times they will not go out of their line of travel to attack these 

 even ; but, trotting leisurely along, will bite only those which fall 

 immediately in their way. In other cases, however, where the 

 natural habit is irritable and ferocious, and where dogs may have 

 been used to worry other animals, as guard-dogs, farmers' dogs, 

 terriers, &c., a disposition to general attack is sometimes apparent; 

 and by such, horses, cows, sheep, pigs, and even human persons, 



