72 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNO 1736. 



rather chooses to do, because Caelius Aurelianus, in his account of it, does not 

 seem to build so much on the authority of Homer, as, in his opinion, he 

 might have done. Indeed he quotes a passage out of the 8th IHad, where 

 Teucer calls Hector jtui/a ^^uo-o-nTtif a, but he does not seem to think this sufficient 

 to prove that Homer was acquainted with this madness. But he omits two 

 more passages in the same author, which, joined with this, amount to a demon- 

 stration that Homer was by no means ignorant of it. The first is in the 9th 

 Iliad, 1. 237, where Ulysses is on his embassy to Achilles. He describes to 

 the last mentioned hero, the distress the Grecian army was in through his ab- 

 sence ; and when he has painted Hector as terrible as he can, he compares his 

 fury to the rage of a mad dog. 



Maii/fxai ixTTxyXu;, TruruK)? An, sSi ti rut 

 Ai/i^xi; iSi ©{85* xf«T£fr) Si i Kh(r(ra SiSvKiv, 



Hector vero valde trucibus oculis adspiciens 



Furit terribiliter, fretus Jove : nee quicquam honorat 

 Viros neque Deos ; ingens autem ipsum rabies invasit. 



If Homer had designed as a physician to describe a mad dog, he could not 

 have expressed his looks by a more proper turn than B\iiJi,t»lvuv. It must also 

 be considered, that this discourse is directed to Achilles, who, having studied 

 physic under Chiron, was consequently more capable of receiving an idea of 

 the mischief Hector did to his countrymen by this metaphor. 



In the 13th Iliad, Hector is again called Aua-a-wJ*)?, by Neptune. It must be 

 observed that Awo-a, Xua-a-rnr]^, and Xva-a-uh;, can properly, and in their natural 

 signification, be applied to no other madness, than that which is peculiar to a dog, 

 though metaphorically it may, as in the instances Dr. J. has given, as also in 

 Sophocles and Euripides. The word Xvaa-x or Aurra is used to signify the mad- 

 ness of dogs by Aristotle, Galen, and Dioscorides. And Ava-a-ohxro; is used by 

 the last mentioned author to signify a man bitten by a mad dog. Auro^aw is 

 used by Aretaeus in this sense, and AuTTtoo-ait by Plutarch, to express the same 

 thing. 



What the Dr. would infer from this is, that Homer was certainly acquainted 

 with the madness of dogs ; and if dogs in his days ran mad, it is probable they 

 would bite men, and if so, to be sure, an hydrophobia would be the conse- 

 quence ; and yet Plutarch will have it that it was first noticed in the days of Ascle- 

 piades, famous for his practice in Rome before the death of Mithridates. 



Another strong evidence of its antiquity, is that instinct which directs every 

 dog to avoid some that is mad, on smelling, seeing, or even hearing him. If 

 this is not instinct, it is reason ; and that in a higher degree, than we our- 



