Facts relating to Hydrophobia. 161 
a remedy, -_ some of them would suffer the bite for the sake of a 
glass of rum.”—Ann. de Chimie.* 
Salt is generally known as the most efficacious remedy, for the 
stings of insects, which to some persons are extremely poisonous. It 
is also extensively used, asa certain remedy by fishermen, and per- 
sons obliged to stand in water, to whom the bite of blood-suckers is 
poisonous. 
The following fact may be relied upon as well authenticated. In 
1807, a boy, at the age of four years, was severely bitten by a mad 
dog, and wounded in the arm. A lad several years older was bitten 
by the same dog, on the same day, and has since died of the disease. 
No remedy was applied to his wound. The arm of the lad bitten at 
the age of four years, was immediately done up in common salt. 
The wound swelled badly, suppurated freely, and finally healed. He 
has since experienced no inconvenience from the bite, and is now a 
healthy, active man. A respectable physician, to whom the particu- 
lars were subsequently related, approved of the course pursued, and 
assured the anxious mother that she had done the best thing which it 
was in her power to do. There is reason to hope, that this may 
prove a cure, and if so, the cure was effected by so simple an agent 
as common salt. 
Query.—If salt has any power to counteract animal poison, might 
it not afford relief, by being administered to persons afflicted with 
hydrophobia ? 
The above statement and the annexed fact, are made public, not 
so much from a conviction that sali is a remedy, as from the hope 
that they will lead to experiments, which shall decide the point, 
whether salt has the power to neutralize or destroy animal poison. 
If such is not the fact, a prevalent tradition should be forthwith cor- 
rected. If it has such a power, immense good would result from 
having the fact scientifically established, and universally promulgated. 
Chlorine is known to destroy instantly every species of virus to 
which it has been hitherto applied. Ts it possible that the chlorine 
in common salt may become so far active, as to destroy the poison ? 
We have no fact as yet ascertained that can sustain this conclusion, 
but it may perhaps be worthy of some attention.—Ep. 
Siegen ee 
* New York Observer. 
