HYDROPHOBIA. 173 



poor dogs have fits in summer, due to many causes, but they could nearly all 

 have been cured if properly treated in time, and as all important diseases are 

 treated in this book, if you will follow its teachings your dog will live until the 

 time comes for him to pass in his checks and go to "dog heaven" with the rest of 

 the good canines gone before. 



A hard question for you or any doctor to answer is, "Why have I not gone 

 mad ' wben it is a fact not to be denied that I have been Mtten by no-called mad] 

 dogs? I am willing to be convinced that I am wrong, if it can be done. While I 

 may be taking up too much space on this subject, yet it is an important one. I 

 will next give two interviews that were published in March, 1896, in a St. Louis 

 paper that may interest and benefit some: 



"Prof. Al. G. Eberhart, who came to St. Louis last week to assume active 

 charge of the preparations for the bench show, is a man who has spent the better 

 part of his life raising and caring for dogs, and his opinion upon this subject is 1 

 that of an authority. Prof. Eberhart says: 



" 'I have been bitten by dogs over a hundred times in my life and carry scars 

 now that I've had for twenty-five years. Some of these so-called miad dogs have 

 bitten me, but yet I am not mad. I have been bitten by dogs that veterinary 

 Surgeons and regular physicians have pronounced and diagnosed as having rabies, 

 but I didn't go mad because I've yet to see a genuine mad dog. Had I been 

 nervous and easily scared I would very likely have been buried long ago. Some 

 ten years ago a young lady in New York City was bitten by her pet dog, and, not 

 wanting to have it killed, it was sent to Harry Jennings, the dog fancier. The 

 dog bit Jiim several times. The young lady died in three weeks from alleged 

 hydrophobia, and Harry Jennings is alive yet. The young lady died from fright. 

 This I know to be a fact. Find me a doctor that can tell what hydrophobia is, 

 then I'll try to believe there is isuch a disease. If the doctor can't tell you what 

 the disease is, he surely can't cure it. When a dog bites you, if it is on any part 

 of your body where you can get your mouth to it as soon as bitten, suck the 

 wound, thus quickly abstracting the poison if any there, spit it out and forget 

 that you were bitten by a dog. for depend on it this ends the matter there and 

 then. You have gotten rid of the poison before it was distributed through the 

 system. If on any part of the body you can't get at, get a friend to do it for you. 

 Another method that is good is to at once wash the wound with water. Then 

 apply the actual cautery, a piece of iron heated to white heat, not to the flesh, 

 but hold it about half an inch from it. The intense heat causes but little pain and 

 will destroy the bacilli of rabies to the depth of one-quarter of an inch. If carbolic 

 or nitric acid or nitrate of silver is used, not five minutes should elapse, as unless 

 properly performed inside of ten minutes it is not only useless but positively 

 injurious as the poison of rabies will have been distributed throughout the 

 system in this time.' " 



The following appeared editorially in the St. Louis Republic of February 24, 

 1896: "The interview with Prof. Al. G. Eberhart, Superintendent of the St. Louis 

 bench show, which was printed in the Sunday Post-Dispatch, in which Prof. 

 Eberhart made the assertion that he had never seen a genuine case of hydrophobia, 

 and that he believed that cases that resulted in what was diagnosed as rabies 

 from the effects of dog bites were the result of imagination, has created much 

 talk and considerable comment. 



"Prof. Eberhart was called upon Saturday by a Post-Dispatch reporter, and 

 asked if he could make his position as a disbeliever in the existence of the disease 



