284 DISEASES OF DOGS. 



however always clear ; and to which is owing so much of discrep- 

 ancy in the accounts given by different persons of the disease. 



258. The raging madness, by its terra has led to an erroneous 

 conclusion, that it is accompanied with violence and fury, which 

 however, is seldom the case : such dogs are irritable and snappish, 

 and will commonly fly at a stick held to them, and are impatient of 

 restraint ; but they are seldom violent except when irritated or 

 worried. On the contrary, till the last moment they will often 

 acknowledge the voice of their master and yield some obedience to 

 it. Neither will they usually turn out of their way to bite human 

 persons, but they have an instinctive disposition to do it to dogs, 

 and in a minor degree to other animals also ; but as before observed, 

 seldom attack mankind without provocation. 



259. Dumb madness is so called, because there is seldom any 

 barking heard, but more particularly, because the jaws drop para- 

 lytic, and the tongue lolls out of the mouth, black, and apparently 

 strangulated : a strong general character of the disease, is the dis- 

 position to scratch their bed towards their belly ; and equally so is 

 the general tendency to eat trash, as hay, straw, wood, coals, dirt, 

 &c. and it sbould be remembered, that this is so very common and 

 so invariable, that the finding these matters in the stomach after 

 death, should always render a suspicion formed of the existence of 

 the disease, confirmed into certainty. Blaine is also at great pains 

 to disprove the notion generally entertained that rabid dogs are 

 averse to water ; and neither drink or come near it. This error, he 

 contends, has led to most dangerous results; and is so far from 

 true, that mad dogs, from their heat and fever, are solicitous for 

 water, and lap it eagerly. When the duinb kind exists in its full 

 force, dogs cannot swallow what they attempt to lap ; but still they 

 will plunge their heads in it, and appear to feel relief by it : but in 

 no instance out of many hundreds, did he ever discover the smallest 

 aversion to it. He lays very great stress on the noise made by 

 rabid dogs, which he says is neither a bark nor a howl, but a 

 tone compounded of both. It has been said by some that this 

 disorder is occasioned by heat or bad food, and by others that 

 it never arises from any other cause but the bite. Accordingly 

 this malady is rare in the northern parts of Turkey, more rare in 

 the southern parts of that empire, and totally unknown under 

 the burning sky of Egypt. At Aleppo, where these animals 

 perish in great numbers for want of water and food, and by the 

 heat of the climate, this disorder was never known. In other 

 parts of Africa and in the hottest zone in America, dogs are ne- 

 "er attacked with madness. Blaine knows of no instance of the 

 complaint being cured, although he lias tried to their fullest extent, 



