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prominent. The first evidence of the impending disorder is usually 

 malaise, mental depression, disturbed sleep, and some discomfort 

 about the throat, with a difficulty of swallowing, especially liquids. 

 The attempt occasions some spasm in the throat, which soon, if not 

 at first, involves the muscles of respiration, causing a short quick 

 respiration, a "catch in the breath" resembling that due to the 

 affusion of cold water. In a few hours this increases to a strong 

 respiratory effort, in which the extraordinary muscles of respiration 

 take more part than the diaphragm, or the great muscular partition 

 situated between the chest and the abdomen, the shoulders are 

 raised, the angles of the mouth are drawn outwards, the saliva, 

 which is abundant and viscid, cannot be swallowed. As the intensity 

 of the spasm increases, so does the readiness with which it is excited. 

 The mere contact of water with the lips, or cutaneous impressions, 

 as a draught of air, will bring on a paroxysm. The distress it 

 occasions leads to a mental state which increases the readiness with 

 which the spasm is produced. The mere sight of water, or the 

 sound of dropping water will cause it, (hence the name), and even 

 analogous visual impressions, as a sudden light or the reflection 

 from a looking glass. 



Thus, the respiratory spasm, excited by swallowing liquids, which 

 is, as it were, the key-note of the disease, extends on the one hand 

 to widely-spread muscular spasm, and on the other to mental dis- 

 turbance. In each of these directions the symptoms develope. The 

 spasm, from being limited to the muscles of respiration, may become 

 general and convulsive in character, still excited by the same causes. 

 The mental distress passes into disturbance, in which the balance 

 of reason is lost, continuously, or during the paroxysms. 



In the frenzy, the horror of the distress is transferred to the 

 attendants, by whom any discomfort may have been occasioned, and 

 during the paroxysm the patient may attempt to bite them, and 

 even others. Consciousness may so far remain that in the intervals 

 he may beg those whom he regards to keep away. The saliva is 

 ejected with force, and the patient hawks it up with a noise " like 

 a dog." 1 he sight of a dog has been known greatly to intensify the 

 disturbance ; and this strangely enough, in cases in which the 

 sufferer had no suspicion of the nature of his affection. 



The duration of Hydrophohia is usually from one to four days ; 

 sometimes it lasts six, or eight, or ten days. 



The common cause of death is exhaustion from the attacks of 

 frenzy and convulsions. Sometimes the patient has died in a 

 paroxysm of respiratory spasm. 



Unfortunately we know little or nothing of the poison of rabies ; 

 most probably the morbid poison of rabies is a living micro-organism, 

 and therein in some measure lies our hope, for there may exist an 



