1G6 Facts relating to Hydrophobia. 



crel and undefined the modes of transmitting the poison, the more 

 unceasing and vigilant should be our endeavors, to hedge up every 

 possible way of access to it. 



In thus adverting to the secondary causes of this disease, in glan- 

 cing at tlie wide field on which they may act, and in attempting to set 

 up beacons, to warn the unwary to stop short of the point at which 

 danger commences, we do not forget that unseen Power, on whose 

 will the action of all secondary causes depends, and by whom their 

 every action is hastened or suspended at pleasure ; nor our obliga- 

 tions of gratitude, that in limits so circumscribed, as those which con- 

 stitute the boundaries of human knowledge, we may arrive at fixed 

 triilhs, which, by disclosing bidden dangers, pointing out the means 

 of avoiding them, and inspiring us with salutary caution, shall ward 

 off the fatal dart, that was covertly aimed at our life, prevent, in many 

 instances, the exquisite sufferings of our fellow beings, and impose, 

 at least, partial restraints on the progress of one of the direst mala- 

 dies, before whose energy man is ever forced to bow in death. 



APPENDIX. 



" COMMON SALT A REMEDY FOR ANIt©VL POISON." 



" The Rev. S. G. Fisher, a missionary in South America, says he 

 actually and effectually cured all kinds of painful and dangerous ser- 

 spents' bites, after they had been inflicted for many hours, by the ap- 

 plication of common salt, moistened with water, and bound upon -the 

 wound, without any bad effect ever occurring afterwards. I, for my 

 part, says he, never had an opportunity to meet with a mad dog, or 

 Bfny person who was bitten by a mad dog. I cannot, therefore, speak 

 with experience as to hydrophobia, but that I have cured serpents' 

 bites, always without fail, I can declare in truth. He then cites a 

 case from a newspaper, in which, a person was bitten by a dog, which, 

 in a few hours, died raving mad. Salt was immediately rubbed, for 

 'some time, into the wound, and the person never experienced any 

 inconvenience from the bite. Mr. Fisher was induced to try the 

 above remedy from a statement made by the late Bishop Loskiel, in 

 his history of the missions of the Moravian Church, in North Amer- 

 ica, purporting that certain tribes of Indians, had not the least fear of 

 the bile of serpents, relying upon the application of salt as so certain 



