302 WORMING. 



opinion that wormed dogs (as they knew their own to be) were in- 

 sured from being at all dangerous, they had taken no precautions 

 whatever ; by which, either in their own persons, the persons of 

 others, or in their animals, they had incurred this dreadful risk. 

 I again assert, that I have known this error to have lulled the 

 owners of wonned dogs into a fallacious security which they have 

 dearly paid for in very many instances. Can it, therefore, be 

 called other than a very dangerous opinion to maintain ? and are 

 we not called on imperatively, by the cause of truth and humanity, 

 to combat it ? and the more so, as the very weight of influence 

 which authorities of such respectability give to their statements, 

 makes them pass for dogmas unnecessary to be further examined. 

 Sir W — m C — n says, " he can bear testimony to the efficacy of 

 worming ; and that he has seen many and repeated instances of 

 its preventing any injury whatever in the strongest paroxysms of 

 the complaint.'' 



But unfortunately for the suflferers, however true it may be, 

 that when dumb madness is fully established, in many instances 

 the dog really cannot bite ; yet it must be considered that it is not 

 from this stage of the disease only that danger is to be appre- 

 hended ; but it has been shewn that, for two or three days previ- 

 ously to the engorgement of the mouth, there are yet actual symp- 

 toms characteristic of the complaint, which are almost invariably, 

 I might say invariably, present. The tumefaction of the throat is 

 always preceded by a certain quickness of manner; and if there be 

 not an actual mischievous disposition apparent, yet there will be 

 often seen some irritability of temper, which may make such a dog 

 resent a fancied aflront, or fall on any of his companions he was 

 not fond of — nay, his very caresses might sow the seeds of death, 

 if they fell on an abraded surface ; and in kennels we know how 

 frequently this variety in particular commences by licking the 

 penis, anus, or vagina of others. I have not the smallest doubt of 

 the complete veracity of the experiment conducted by Sir Wm. 



C n, of confining rabid dogs, which had been wormed, with 



others, and which have not become rabid ; but if this praiseworthy 



