VEGETABLE POISONS. 191 



fluid, is brought within his observation; and this 

 instinctively leads to an anxiety, amounting to a 

 command, to have such articles immediately re- 

 moved from his sight, though most frequently 

 at a time when he feels the greatest desire to 

 allay his thirst by their use. As the designation, 

 however, is familiarly understood to imply that 

 disease which more usually is produced by the 

 bite of a rabid animal, and as we have no better 

 appellation to propose, we must shelter ourselves 

 under the privilege of custom in continuing a 

 term, which, in a scientific point of view, our 

 judgment condemns as incorrect. 



There is no disease to which the human frame 

 is subject, in which the early and subsequent 

 symptoms have been so various, or the time of 

 approach so uncertain, as that of hydrophobia. 

 This renders an accurate description of some 

 difficulty, and leaves us no other choice but that 

 of a general delineation of a disease which is only 

 to be known by actual observation. The fol- 

 lowing, however, may serve to point out perhaps 

 its leading features, so as to admit of its being 

 recognized, should you fall in with a malady 

 of so formidable and so fatal an aspect. 



At an uncertain period after the bite has been 

 inflicted, sometimes in a few days, more frequently 

 in about five or six weeks, seldom exceeding as 

 many months, and still more unu&ual at so great 

 a distance as a twelvemonth, the person feels a 

 renewed uneasiness and pricking pain in the viei- 



