PRODUCED BY MENTAL CAUSES. 271 



in all its degrees. And herein again may be pointed out the 

 serious responsibility incurred by those who provoke dogs to 

 fury. Dr. Eichardson of London, with whom I corresponded 

 on comparative pathology a quarter of a century ago, and 

 who was one of only two or three men in Britain physicians 

 or veterinarians who at the time had any appreciation of 

 the importance of that still new and little known science, 

 writes : ' In the dog suffering from rabies it is, I think, 

 beyond dispute that the poison in the saliva is developed in 

 some cases spontaneously through the influence of rage or 

 fear.' 



Not only the milk, saliva, and other secretions, but the 

 blood and the flesh of certain domestic animals, especially 

 the ox, acquire deleterious or poisonous properties when the 

 animal has suffered intensely or protractedly, either men- 

 tally or physically. Thus the flesh of tortured, overdriven 

 cattle produces various forms of disease usually more or 

 less temporary and trivial fortunately in those human 

 beings who eat it as food. These diseases include various 

 skin eruptions, gastric disorders and febrile phenomena, the 

 cutaneous affections arising also from mere contact with the 

 flesh or blood mere handling it, for instance, by butchers. 

 Deterioration or loss of flesh and fat, emaciation and inferior 

 quality of the meat as food, with liability to actual and 

 specific disease of the said flesh or fat, are the result of the 

 excitement of being incessantly hunted, in Australian cattle 

 (Baden Powell). In all these cases there is an obvious com- 

 bination of mental and physical influences : it is impossible to 

 separate the effect of mental excitement, of irritation, anger, 

 fear, worry, from physical exhaustion, the result of intense 

 muscular and nervous strain. 



Such considerations that milk and flesh used as food by 

 man may be vitiated, even rendered poisonous to him or his 

 children ; or that in the saliva of the dog there may be 

 developed a highly dangerous communicable specific poison, 

 by the action on the nervous system of the cow or dog of 

 such passions or emotions as rage or fear bring us back to 

 remark on the obvious economy and policy of man's kind or 

 judicious treatment of domestic animals, especially of those 



