264 The Management and Diseases of tfie Dog. 



" The only positive statements I can meet with as to the 

 milk of a mad dog producing rabies, are the following: 

 Soranus of Ephesus, the most distinguished disciple of the 

 Methodic School of Medicine, averred that infants at the 

 breastaresometimes attacked withhydrophobia.* Balthazar 

 Timsus speaks of a peasant, with his wife and children, as 

 well as several other persons, becoming rabid through drink- 

 ing the milk of an affected cow. Eleven of these died ; but 

 the peasant and his eldest child were restored by medical 

 treatment — a circumstance which might tend to throw 

 some doubt on the occurrence. Faber mentions instances 

 in which the milk has proved injurious. An observation 

 made by M. Dussort, and quoted by Roucher, offers a very 

 probable instance of transmission by the milk of a hydro- 

 phobic patient. This was the case of a negress in Algeria, 

 whose child died presenting symptoms similar to those of 

 the mother before she perished. In the same country, 

 however, M. Hugo relates the case of a rabid bitch, whose 

 puppies were suckled by her, and remained in good health. 

 But, again, an instance is given in ' Cassell's Magazine ' for 

 July, 1871, in which the puppies suckled by a mad bitch 

 also became rabid."t 



Treatment. — After what I have already said, it is almost 

 needless to add that I believe treatment, according to past 



* Cjel. Aurelianus, Op. cit., lib. iii. cap. 2, 



■f " A friend of mine once owned a favourite terrier, which had re- 

 cently littered five puppies, and as she was kept constantly in his 

 garden, she could not possiblv have been bitten for some considerable 

 time. But she suddenly displayed unmistakable symptoms of mad- 

 ness, and ran up and down the garden, with the saliva flying from her 

 jaws, and her head twitching from side to side, as the heads of all mad 

 dogs do. . . . But, even in her frenzy, her maternal instinct was 

 too strong, and she ran back to her kennel, and began suckling her 

 puppies. . . . Here is the strangest part of the story, and to me it 

 seems very pathetic : all her little puppies were raving mad too, and the 

 foam hung in flakes about their mouths, and their poor little heads 

 twitched, just as the mother's had done. They had sucked in madness 

 with the milk, for she had not bitten any of them. This was, in my 

 experience at least, a new feature in the history of hydrophobia." 



