ment, one fortnight for assaulting the poHce on his way from the 

 hospital to the Town Hall, another fortnight for malingering. It 

 was discovered afterwards that he was a discharged soldier from the 

 4th Dragoon Guards. 



The prevalence of hydrophobia just now is somewhat remarkable. 

 Up to the present time there have been twenty-five cases of hydro- 

 phobia this year in London alone, the average annual number in 

 the ten years, (1875-84) being only six. 



The Lancet of October 31st, says " that the recent mortality from 

 hydrophobia in London has indeed been without precedent since 

 the commencement of civil registration in 1837, and calls for more 

 regulations at the hands of the police. It is not without interest to 

 find that in the Registrar-General's last published annual report 

 that mortality from hydrophobia in England and Wales did not 

 exceed the rate of one per million persons living in each of 

 the five years 1879-83, whereas it averaged two per million in the 

 nine years, 1870-78. The Lancet goes on to say that in preventive 

 means must we look for the proper curb to the present serious 

 increase of rabies in London. There does not seem any reasonable 

 doubt of the alarming spread of this direful malady, and those who 

 have witnessed the disease, especially in the human subject, as I 

 have, may reasonably be pardoned if under the circumstances they 

 adopt a somewhat violent attitude in regard to the matter. To 

 witness a poor sufferer shuddering at every light puff of air, to 

 know that every attempt at the swallowing of a liquid will excite the 

 same spasmodic action, and to be aware of the certainty of the 

 approach of death, might at the moment excuse the utterance of a 

 wish that all dogs should be destroyed. 



It is of considerable practical importance that the disease of rabies 

 in dogs should be quickly recognized. The ordinary story of a mad 

 dog is that he is killed by some heroic individual, usually by a 

 policeman, but not before several persons— for the most part child- 

 ren — have been bitten, Moreover, unless the animal is foaming at 

 the mouth, wildly excited, and rushing aimlessly about, he is not 

 suspected of being afflicted with hydrophobia. Yet there is no 

 worse form of rabies than the " dumb madness " indicated mainly 

 by intense sullenness. In this form there is paralysis of the lower 

 jaw which hinders the dog from biting, and its ferocious instincts 

 are in abeyance ; 15 per cent, of rabid dogs have this peculiar form. 

 The symptoms of what may be termed incipient rabies have long 

 been recognized by veterinary surgeons, and amongst the most 

 striking is the altered tone of the diseased dog's bark. Instead of 

 being clear and resonant it is raucous and dull, and such dogs 

 sh uld at once be kept apart and deprived of tlie power of doing 

 mischief until the existence of the disease is placed beyond a doubt, 



