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antidote for every bacterium that invades our organism, but on this 

 point more will be said by and bye. The actual diseased condition 

 which constituted the chief seat and source of danger in hydrophobia 

 in an abnormal activity of the blood vessels of that part of the 

 central nervous system where the spinal marrow joins the brain. 

 The morbid process in itself is not so formidable a character that it 

 should be feared ; nor indeed would there be so much cause for 

 alarm if a similar diseased process occurred in another part of the 

 nervous system. It so happens — unfortunately for the human and 

 canine race — that the morbid agent on which rabies or hydrophobia 

 is practially dependant, developes with the greatest luxuriance, and 

 causes the most damage just in those parts of the brain which are 

 most essential to life. Hence the as yet hopelessness and rapidity 

 of this terrible malady ; for the disease doubly deserves this epithet 

 from the insidious and uncertain manner with which it creeps on, 

 and from the at present absolute certainty of its ultimate issue, 

 There are certain diseases which simulate hydrophobia such as 

 tetanus, acute mania, organic brain diseases, accompanied by 

 delirium and convulsions occurring after a bite. Even mere mental 

 excitement, directed to the disease, may determine symptoms of 

 difficulty of swallowing, somewhat resembling the genuine disease, 

 " spurious hydrophobia " as it has been termed. It is important 

 to remember that in some cases of general hydrophobia the influence 

 of the patient's mental state has been very clearly traceable even in 

 the early symptoms. The distinction of genuine from spurious 

 hydrophobia is often rendered difficult by the fact that the latter 

 usually follows suspicious bites, an I that the former maybe dis- 

 tinctly intensified by the patient's nervous fears. 



Strangely enough, nearly all, if not all the symptoms of genuine 

 hydrophobia may be simulated. The following interesting and 

 instructive case came under my notice last year : One evening I 

 was suddenly called by an urgent message to go and see a man 

 brought into our hospital with hydrophobia. On my arrival I was 

 told that the patient had been picked up in Sandgate in a violent 

 fit of spasm ; he was carried the whole distance, and had made two 

 or three attempts to bite people on the way. He barked at times 

 exactly like a dog. When I saw him he was comfortably placed in 

 bed,hi8 back was exceedingly arched, and all his facial muscles were 

 rigid. He could not speak, and had refused spasmodically all drink. 

 I cannot here go into my reasons for disagreeing with the diagnosis 

 that liad already been made, but I applied a test by means of con- 

 tinual pressure for a few minutes in the hollow just underneath the 

 globe of the ear. The hydrophobia disappeared as quickly as it 

 had come on. The man was ordered to be taken to the Town Hall. 

 The next morning the attack was visited with a month's imprison- 



