144 Facts relating to Hydrophobia. 



that no such case has ever occurred.* As to the time during which 

 the virus may lie dormant, popular opinion is perhaps in one extreme, 

 and philosophical caution in the other. It is stated that " the devel- 

 opment of the morbid symptoms rarely takes place before the fortieth 

 or after the sixtieth day."-}- There are, however, very many well at- 

 tested cases in which the virus has lain much longer in the system, and 

 the limit seems not to be, as yet, definitely established. 



Proof sheets of the annexed statement, having been communicated 

 to a number of medical gentlemen of high standing, most of them 

 were of the opinion, that although the facts stated in the Chester 

 cases are not, diagnostically, conclusive, they are interesting, and 

 also important, in as much as they may induce caution in those who 

 attend upon hydrophobic patients. So rare is hydrophobia in this 

 part of the United States, that although the gentlemen consulted had 

 practised medicine extensively, most of them for many years, in five 

 different geographical locations, remote from each other, only two of 

 them had ever seen a case of undoubted hydrophobia. One of 

 these J had attended on two unequivocal cases, both of which termi- 

 nated fatally ; and this physician considers the facts that occurred at 

 Chester to be such as belong to hydrophobia, and that there is noth- 

 ing in the cases inconsistent with this supposition. The narrative is 

 given, however, not as a medical, but as a popular statement, believ- 

 ed to be true by judicious people, personally acquainted with the 

 cases. The facts in Part II. are added for illustration and compar- 

 ison. — Editor of the Am. Jour, of Science and Arts. 



Statement of fads by the Rev. William Case. 

 PART I. 



TO PROFESSOR SILLIMAN. 



Chester, October 14, 1831. 

 Dear Sir, — In compliance with your request, I have endeavored to 

 collect the facts, respecting the supposed cases of hydrophobia in this 



* " There is no instance of the rabies having been communicated from one person 

 to another ;" — Encyclopedia Americana, Vol. VI, p. 511. And it is asserted also, 

 in the same work, that the hog, sheep, and cow are incapable of communicating the 

 poison, but these statements are contradicted by cases in this article. 



t Encyclopaedia Americana, Vol. VI, p. 511. 



t Dr. Eli Ives, Professor of Theory and Practice in the Medical Institution of Yale 

 College. 



