232 RABIES CANINA, 



very considerable, and an occasional caso may occur where the 

 appearances are not very strong, even when the animal is suffered 

 to remain until death ; but such instances are rare. 



In the stomach inflammatory marks are very seldom wanting ; 

 and turning our attention to a rabid one, we are often first struck 

 with its appearance of distention, and, on opening it, the cause is 

 seen to arise from an accumulation of a considerable, oftentimes 

 of an immense, mass of indigestible substances, as hay, straw, 

 wood, coals, or, in fact, of any surrounding matter which has 

 proved small enough for deglutition. This disposition to take in 

 unusual ingesta exists in every variety of the complaint ; and as 

 sickness and vomiting, though common in its early stages, are but 

 seldom to be found during the latter periods of it, so the substances 

 taken in being of an indigestible nature, necessarily remain within 

 the stomach until death. There is little reason to doubt that a 

 morbid sympathy in this organ is the occasion of this peculiarity, 

 and that the presence of these hard bodies gives some relief, pro- 

 bably by the distention they occasion. Certain it is, that the ap- 

 pearance of this indigestible and incongruous matter within the 

 stomach is so common, that it becomes a pathognomonic sign of 

 the utmost importance, and it should be searched for in every 

 case where doubt exists^^. 



" In describing the criteria of the disease, I have purposely omitted before 

 enlarging on this particular, that I might here do it more fully, and that I 

 might at once describe both the cause and effect : I must now therefore ob- 

 serve, that, of all the characteristic marks of the complaint, I consider this 

 as the most genuine, and as the one liable to the least variation. I will not 

 say that I never saw a rabid stomach, after death, without this crude indi- 

 gestible mass; but, during the examination of more than two hundred cases, 

 I do not recollect to have met with but very few indeed in which there has 

 not been either this, or a chocolate-coloured fluid : and when these indigesta 

 are not present, on inquiry it will still be often found that such have been 

 vomited up. This genuine characteristic cannot, therefore, be too strongly 

 kept in mind, because it is one that may be sought for by one person as well 

 as another, by the most uninformed, and by the amateur as well as the pro- 

 fessional man. It is also more important, because it may be found long after 



