218 KENNEL DISEASES. 
open and bleeding. To promote a flow of blood, which is decidedly favorable, 
a cord or handkerchief can be tied fairly tight between the wounded part and 
the body. The suction should be, if possible, persisted in until the bite can be 
cauterized, and then, of course, it must be discontinued. If the individual 
bitten lives at a distance from druggists, and delay must ensue before chemical 
caustics can be obtained, an iron, heated until it is just beginning to turn red, 
should be used to burn the wound thoroughly, the fact being in mind that the 
general tendency is to apply the iron much too lightly, and consequently merely 
burn the surface, whereas it should go deeply. 
The chemical and corrosive agents penetrate to every part of the wound with 
greater certainty, and when possible they should be secured. The most active 
are nitric, sulphuric, and carbolic acids, caustic potassa, and nitrate of silver. 
Regarding the sucking of a wound made by a suspected animal, it is of in- 
terest to recall the fact that in Lyons, during the first twenty years of the pres- 
ent century, certain women made it their business to apply suction to the 
wounds made by rabid dogs, for which they were paid ten francs for the first 
operation, and five for each succeeding one. Of thirty-eight persons bitten and 
subsequently subjected to this operation, not one contracted hydrophobia. 
Attention may properly be called here to the absolutely senseless notion 
that if a perfectly sound and untainted dog bites a person and ever afterward 
becomes rabid, his victim will also go mad. 
It ought not to be necessary to urge that only an animal suffering from rabies 
can communicate to another the virus or poison of that disease, for in none 
other does it exist. 
He who has been bitten, and, greatly frightened, had the offending dog at 
once destroyed, has done grievously wrong. Indeed, he has deliberately 
thrown away his only chance of soon recovering his lost peace of mind; and 
he will likely now for a long time be in grave doubt and suffer more or less 
anxiety, through the fear that the dog was really rabid when he inflicted the 
bite, or about to become so, the seeds, as it were, of the malady being in 
his blood; whereas, had he allowed him to live, he would have had, in the 
well dog, the best proof that there was not the slightest occasion for him to be 
uneasy. 
It follows that, invariably, every dog that has exhibited symptoms of rabies 
and bitten some one should be safely confined, and allowed to recover or die 
a natural death, that all doubts may be at rest. 
In the last decade, and during “hydrophobia scares,” the writer has several 
times discussed this subject in a newspaper with which he was connected, and 
as often stated in substance as follows: — 
The chances of a person giving up his life on a scaffold are quite as many as 
those of his dying from hydrophobia. No sensible person will ever make himself 
unhappy over so slight a danger. The hydrophobia crank will find some con- 
