CHAP. III.] CAUSES OF CANINE MADNESS. 429 



pared to shoot the caitiff, or to run him through. 

 We hear the free use of horse-flesh for keeping 

 dogs in England charged as one main cause for 

 engendering rabies, or at least quarrelsomeness ; 

 add to this, the denial of water to which some of 

 them are subjected at a season when dilution is 

 most required — " what time the dog-star reigns," 

 and we think the suggestion worthy of being re- 

 ceived as one particle in the science of medical 

 jurisprudence. Certain we are, that this appalling 

 disorder is comparatively small in other parts of the 

 world, where horse-flesh is less plentiful, or water, 

 the antidote, is found in abundance ; at Lisbon, for 

 example, where dogs perform the office of scaven- 

 gers, and are supplied with water by individual 

 housekeepers. Our own towns, too, in which water 

 is easily obtained, are much seldomer subject to 

 epidemic visitations of rabies than others more arid, 

 yet lying open to an access of carrion in abundance. 

 Dogs invariably take water with much eagerness 

 in every stage of the disorder, so far as we have 

 seen, or heard of orally; some printed accounts 

 differ, but we rely little on the periodical scraps 

 that are necessarily brought out with too much 

 haste to be accurate. Man dreads it ; but when 

 he can get it down, which has been done within a 

 day or two of his dissolution, he finds the raging 

 heat of his stomach alleviated by the effort. 



Symptoms. — In the dog, the approach of rabies 

 may be known by a marked deviation from the gene- 

 ral habits of his kind, amounting to dislike of former 



