A STRANGE EPIDEMIC. 187 
daily under the skin, powerless to prevent the development of the disorder in 
rabbits. ; 
M. Raynaud, experimenting in the same direction, ascertained the effects 
of inoculation of the rabbit from man in the hydrophobic state. A man in that 
state was brought to the Lariboisiere Hospital, having been bitten in the upper 
lip by a dog forty days previously. He had had the wound cauterized two hours 
after the accident, and had thought himself quite safe till some of the usual 
hydrophobic symptoms appeared. The day before his death, in a quiet interval, 
he yielded himself with the best grace to the experiments in inoculation which 
were made with his blood and his saliva. The result of inoculating the rabbit 
with the blood was negative (as in the great majority of previous cases of inocu- 
lation with blood of animals under rabies.) But with the saliva it was otherwise. 
A rabbit inoculated in the ear and abdomen, on October 11, began to show 
symptoms of rabies on the 15th, being much excited and damaging the walls of 
its cage, while it uttered loud cries and slavered at the mouth. Then it fell into 
collapse and died the following night. The rabbit’s body was not dissected till 
thirty-six hours after death, and further experiment was made by taking fragments 
of the right and left submaxillary glands, and introducing them under the skin of 
two other rabbits respectively. These two rapidly succumbed, one on the fifth, 
the other on the sixth day (becoming visibly ill on the third); neither passed 
through a furious stage, however, and the predominant feature was paraplegia 
(a form of paralysis). The important practical result is that human saliva, such 
as caused rabies in the rabbit, is necessarily virulent, and would probably have 
corresponding effects on man; so that it should be dealt with cautiously, and 
that not only during the life of the person furnishing it, but in post-mortem 
examinations. 
A STRANGE EPIDEMIC. 
On the night of Tuesday, June 15, a remarkable epidemic fell upon several 
towns in western Massachusetts, the town of Adams suffering most severely. 
Out of a population of 6,000, several hundred—variously estimated from 600 to 
over 1,o00o—were prostrated by a disease resembling cholera morbus. The symp- 
‘toms were first dizziness, then great nausea, followed by vomiting and prolonged 
purging, and in some cases delirium. A belt of country two or three miles in 
width and several miles long was thus afflicted, beginning at the west, the whole 
number of victims being estimated at from 1,200 to1,500. No deaths are repor- 
ted. 
The cause of the epidemic is not known, but seems most likely to have been 
atmospheric. For some time the weather had been dry and hot. A heavy local 
rain fell during the evening, and was followed by or attended with a sudden and 
_ great lowering of the temperature. A chilly fog hung over the belt of country 
invaded by the disease, and a heavy ‘‘swampy” odor and taste were in the air. 
