5l6 DOGS USED FOR SPORT. 



sist in the presence of unnatural ing.^sta in the stomach : straw, 

 hay, hair, horse-dung, earth. Sometimes the stomach is perfectly 

 distended with these substances ; and when it contains none of 

 them, there is a fluid of the deepest chocolate color mixed with 

 olive ; or still darker, like coffee ; and when neither the unnatural 

 ingesta nor the dark fluid appear, it will be found, says Mr. Y., 

 upon careful inquiry. 



I believe that Mr. Youatt's opinion, already mentioned, of tne 

 cause of rabies in dogs, and in all creatures — viz., that it always 

 results from the introduction of a specific virus into the system — 

 I believe this opinion is not commonly entertained. Most people 

 think that the disease is generated de novo, in the dog at least ; 

 and causes have been assigned for it which certainly are not the 

 true nor the sole causes. Thus hydrophobia in the dog has been 

 ascribed to extreme heat of the weather. It is thought by many 

 to be particularly likely to occur in the dog-days ; and to be as 

 Mr. Mayo observes, " a sort of dog-lunacy having the same rela- 

 tion to Sirius that insanity has to the moon ; which, indeed, in an- 

 other sense is probably true.'' Many cautions are annually put 

 forth, about that period, for muzzling dogs, and so on ; very good 

 and proper advice, but if those who have noted the statistics of 

 the disease may be depended upon, it would seem as appropriate 

 at one period of the year as at another. Rabies occurs as often, if 

 not oftener, in the spring, in the autumn, and even in the winter, 

 as it does in summer. M. Trolliet, who wrote an interesting essay 

 on rabies, states that in January, which is the coldest, and August, 

 which is the hottest month in the year, are the very months which 

 furnish the fewest examples of the disease. The disorder has often 

 been ascribed to want of water in hot weather, and sometimes to 

 want of food. But MM. Dupuytren, Breschet and Magendie, 

 have caused both dogs and cats to perish with hunger and thirst, 

 without producing the smallest approach to a state of rabies.* At 

 the Veterinary School at Alfort, three dogs were subjected to some 

 very cruel but decisive experiments. It was during the heat of 



* Attempts to produce hydrophobia artificially by starving dogs have been in- 

 effectually made by Radi, Bourgelat, and M^necier also. Pillwax observed during 

 one of the severer epizootics in Vienna, that the greater number of affected dogs 

 belonged to owners in good circumstances in life, enjoy ng therefore, for the most 

 part, good care and food. 



