OR CANINE MADNESS. 237 



the sensible and irritable fibre to exert a particular morbid action 

 on certain organs; to all appearance, on the sensorium itself: for 

 the sensations which arise in the bitten part, as an invariable pre- 

 cursor to other morbid phenomena, follow the course of the nerves 

 rather than of the absorbents ; and we do really find the first 

 constitutional symptoms are of nervous origin. Our principal 

 authorities, I believe, unite in considering it as a disease of the 

 respiratory nerves, principally expending itself on the cervical, 

 dorsal, and lumbar portions of the spinal column ; and such I 

 believe it to be altogether in the human subject : intrinsically, it 

 may be so in the brute constitution also (as Dr. Clutterbuck would 

 ingeniously derive every fever from inflammation of the brain) ; 

 but in the brute subject I am disposed to think it unites itself with 

 a specific phlegmasia, little known to the human^Q. 



'® Mr. Youatt appears to entertain an opinion of the complete identity of 

 the rabid disease in every animal whatever, and consequently in man as the 

 head of them all. He certainly argues the point most ingeniously, it must 

 be owned ; yet the analogy appears rather strained, although, with the above 

 admissions, it will be hard to deny his premises ; which are such, that it would 

 be doing both the author and the reader injustice to give in any other form 

 than his own. " Rabies," he says, " is a nervous affection, and particularly 

 of the respiratory system of nerves, or those which are employed in the in- 

 stinctive and involuntary actions connected with respiration, and which serve 

 to associate many of the voluntary muscles in the discharge of the same 

 function. These nerves arise from the medulla oblongata, in which, or on its 

 membranes, inflammation is almost invariably detected. They do not spring 

 from the same columns with the other spinal nerves ; and they have roots pe- 

 culiarly constructed, and following one another in an uniform line, as if tiiey 

 were leagued in the performance of the same office. They are the portio 

 dura of the seventh pair, distributed over the face ; the glosso-pharyngeus, 

 which supplies the pharynx and the tongue ; the par vagum, wandering to the 

 pharynx, the larynx, the heart, the lungs, and the stomach ; the recurrent, 

 ramifying on the muscles of the larynx, and the membrane of the glottis ; 

 and the spinal- accessory given to the neck and shoulder, and reaching even 

 to the loins. The twitchings and contraction of the eyelids, the strabismus, 

 the spasms of the cheek, and lips, and face, and the paralysis of the muscles 

 of the lower jaw, sufficiently prove an affection of the portio dura. The pro- 

 trusion of the tongue, the enlargement of the sublingual and other glands. 



