OR CANINE MADNESS. 233 



When the stomach is emptied, it usually presents marks of very 

 intense inflammation. If the dog has been destroyed very early 

 in the complaint, the inflammatory markings may not be very con- 

 siderable, but, in every such instance even, which has fallen under 

 my notice, in some degree or other, they have still been present ; 

 while, in those cases where the animals had been suffered to die 

 of the disease, I never remember one in which the morbid appear- 

 ances were not considerable. The inner surface, or rugous coat, 

 is often livid, and not unfrequently sprinkled over with pustular 

 prominences : it is not unusual, likewise, for it to exhibit sphacelated 

 ulcerous patches. I have seen it actually perforated by the mor- 

 tification present. The outer surface is seldom wholly free from 

 inflammatory marks either, particularly along the great curvature ; 

 and such is the intensity of the inflammation, that I have seen 

 blood extravasated between the membranous and muscular coats. 

 There are seldom many fluid contents present, — the mass of in- 

 gesta usually absorbs what may be there ; but when any such are 

 found, they invariably consist of a dark-coloured liquor, not unlike 

 coffee grounds. 



The intestinal tube is often found with strong marks of disease 

 also ; but the frequency of these is not equal to the stomachic af- 

 fection. It is seldom continuous, but rather in contiguous patches, 

 principally affecting sometimes one and sometimes another of the 



death, when the other marks have become blended in the universal decompo- 

 sition and decay of the body. I cannot exemplify this better than by relating 

 a circumstance of my being sent for, to a considerable distance in the country, 

 to examine a suspected dog, that had been already buried three weeks, but 

 was now dug up for my inspection. All other marks to be gained from the 

 morbid anatomy had, of course, disappeared ; and I must have been left in 

 doubt (for the dog had come from some distant part, had bitten a child who 

 was caressing him, and had been in consequence killed on the spot — nothing, 

 therefore, of his history was known), had it not been for this unfailing crite- 

 rion, which I found to exist, in this instance, in its full force, and from which 

 I was led, without fear of error, to decide that the dog had been rabid, and, 

 consequently, without excision of the bitten parts the child's life was in 

 danger. 



