RABIES -MADNESS. 307 



two such opposite states result from the same patho- 

 logical cause. Although the author hesitates to insist 

 on his own opinion, where a doubt may entail months 

 of agony, and years of anxiety on his reader, he has 

 never known hydrophobia to be generated by an ani- 

 mal in such a condition ; and the examination, after 

 death preceded by such symptoms, always disclosed 

 the dog to have suffered not from rabies, but from 

 acute laryngitis. 



The appearances after death are different in the 

 two varieties of the malady. In the first there is 

 generally great inflammation about the back part of 

 the mouth, and the upper part of the windpipe; in- 

 flammation and also corrugation of the stomach, and 

 the stomach contains more or less of the strange sub- 

 stances of which mention has been made. In the latter 

 there is more inflammation in the throat ; but less in 

 the stomach, and the stomach usually contains only a 

 dark fluid. 



Of the medical treatment of rabies in the dog, little 

 that is satisfactory can be said. No man is justified 

 in keeping alive the animal concerning the power of 

 which to inflict a horrible death upon an unlimited 

 number of human beings no doubt can possibly be 

 entertained. There is no cure for rabies. The animal, 

 therefore, concerning which a doubt even exists should 

 be destroyed. The possibility of a terrible disease is 

 thereby spared to some human being, and as the dog- 

 has no foreknowledge to quicken its anticipations, 

 death to it is reduced to a mere physical agony. 



As to preventives, no dependence can be placed 

 upon them; it will therefore be the duty of the 



