270 MOKBID BODILY CONDITIONS 



success is importantly suggestive. Livingstone tells us that 

 certain African cows refuse to give milk, save to their calves, 

 and that the natives resort to the following more successful 

 than elegant expedient to compel them to yield their milk 

 to man also. They smear the teats with some of the cow's 

 own dung. The calves are too disgusted to suck these dung- 

 smeared teats. The result is milk-fever from the milk not 

 being drawn off at all, and the resultant discomfort or pain 

 leads the animals ultimately to succumb to the herdsman for 

 the sake of physical relief, 



On the other hand, a more elegant and equally successful 

 mode of accomplishing the same end is, or was at one time, 

 employed in the Scottish highlands, according to Miss Gor- 

 don Gumming, who says : ' The only thing I ever saw prevail 

 upon a sulky cow to give her milk was to sing to her some 

 mournful but sweet air whilst soothingly rubbing her udder. 

 Two of the real orthodox songs for such airs ' are mentioned 

 by her as apparently still in use. ' I know that they have 

 often, when plaintively sung, been known to overcome a 

 cow's unwillingness to give her milk when all other means 

 fail .... I have seen cows not give a drop when their 

 calves were being weaned from, them, or even if they were 

 for a time deprived of any luxury in the shape of corn or 

 potatoes they have been accustomed to at milking time. 

 . . . Eefusing the milk is the revenge a cow takes if in 

 the sulks.' 



The temper of the animal also frequently determines the 

 quantity of the milk it yields, if it gives milk at all. But 

 much more important is the change of quality, the develop- 

 ment of noxious or poisonous properties, in the milk-yield 

 under the influence of such passions as anger, rage, fury. 



This influence of passion in altering the chemical compo- 

 sition of various secretions is, however, more familiar in the case 

 of the saliva of the dog in rabies. There is no good ground 

 for doubting that rabies itself is sometimes produced, and 

 the saliva of the dog rendered specifically poisonous so as 

 to induce rabies or hydrophobia in other animals or in man 

 when bitten by it, and the saliva thus inoculated by the 

 influence especially of the exciting passions, such as anger 



