HYDROPHOBIA. 175 



(I forgot to state in this interview that before leaving the dog, and after the 

 oil, I gave him; a dope of worm medicine; result was a lot of worms passed, and 

 here was the cause of this "mad dog.") 



" 'After I had arisen in the morning I telephoned the owner of the dog to 

 come and get his pet. He came, and his gratitude was manifest in the way he 

 greeted the little fellow that he had condemned to death the night before. 



' 'Now, supposing that the dog had bitten the Police Sergeant. The Sergeant 

 was firmly convinced that the dog was afflicted with the rabies, and if, by any 

 possibility the dog had bitten him he would have worried himself until it would 

 have perhaps resulted in an attack of hydrophobia. The dog would have been 

 immediately killed, and thus all evidence that there was no rabies manifested in 

 the animal would have been destroyed, and another name would have been added 

 to the list of supposed victim's to this terrible disease, delusion, or whatever you 

 choose to term it. 



" 'But what was really the matter with the dog, Professor?' queried the Post- 

 Dispatch man. 



" 'Worms,' said Prof. Eberbart, 'nothing but worms. And let me tell you that 

 at the bottom of nearly every illness to which a dog is subjected you will find 

 worms to be the cause. In fact, they cause eight-tenths of all the death's in the 

 canine world. If owners would keep their dogs' bowels open with an occasional 

 dose of some purgative there would be many less cases fcf "mad dogs" like that 

 poor little, shivering, sick Italian greyhound lying on the cold stone floor of that 

 Cincinnati station cell. 



" 'But that wasn't the end of that case,' continued the Professor, 'and this part 

 of it shows just how little this question of mad dogs is understood. After I had 

 gone down town to my office the same morning the dog had been taken home, his 

 owner, who had called for him in the morning, came in. 



" 'Now, Professor,' said he, 'I know and you know that our dog is all right, 

 but my wife has been worrying all night about him, and she was so frightened 

 yesterday over his wild running and jumping that nothing but a personal visit 

 from you will reassure her and quiet her fears, and I wish you would call at my 

 house and see her. 



" 'I went out to the gentleman's residence and talked to his wife. I told her 

 how her dog would act under certain conditions. I asked her, if her infant was 

 thrown into spasms from worms if she would be afraid of contracting hydrophobia 

 from it. I showed her that an ailment affected a dog exactly as it would a human. 

 She was a sensible woman land saw the point at once, and I am sure there will be 

 no more "rabies" in her dogs. 



" 'Now, I know of another case,' said the professor, 'where a small child was 

 bitten a>nd a fearful gash cut by the dog's teeth clean to the skull, and that dog 

 died two days later with all the aversion to water that they claim is an infallible 

 symptom of hydrophobia, that he could manifest, still the little boy did not have 

 rabies, and simply because he was too smiall to take part in his parents' worry 

 over the outcome of the bite.' " 



The following appeared editorially in the St. Louis Republic, Feb. 24, 1896: 







"IS THE MAD DOG A MYTH? 



"This is far from dog-day time, but The Republic trusts that the optimism of 

 the St. Louis Bench Show's Superintendent will be treasured by nervous mothers 

 for use next August. He says that there is no such thing as poisonous rabies in dogs. 



