HYDROPHOBIA. 107 



a dog suffering from hydrophobia lapping water, 

 the very fact of his lapping the water, whether he 

 swallows it or not, proves the difference between the 

 inevitably fatal madness and a temporary insanity 

 from which the patient may recover. 



There is a phase in that scourge to all kennels, the 

 distemper, which, in every symptom that it has, is so 

 nearly allied to hydrophobia, that, unless by the fact 

 that the one patient will greedily lap water, though he 

 may or may not swallow it, and the other dreads its 

 very sight — its noise as well as its touch — the two 

 madnesses cannot be distinguished the one from the 

 other. In the number of years that I have kept and 

 thoroughly administered to hounds and greyhounds, 

 I have had several opportunities of observing this, 

 and I know that the test of water is the only infallible 

 detection between the two. In this the most fatal 

 phase of the distemper, the brain, the lungs, and the 

 whole of the internal structure, is in a state, more or 

 less, of inflammatory action, extending to the throat, 

 and, by spasmodic action, often preventing the thirsting 

 animal from swallowing the water at which he will 

 lap so greedily. Fits very frequently attend this mad- 

 ness from distemper — for the dog is perfectly insane, 

 and will snap at and bite anything that comes near 

 him. Fits are not always its accompaniment ; if they 



