SPECIFIC DISEASES. 275 



disease running a regular course, and should only be used to com- 

 bat special conditions, such as diarrhoea or excessive rises in 

 temperature. 



Rabies, JMadmss, Bydrophobia. 



The earliest writers described this most fatal affection. 

 Regarding it Mr. George Fleming, in his work dealing on the 

 subject, states as follows: 



"Its great antiquity is undoubted. Plutarch asserts that ac- 

 cording to- Athenodorus, it was first observed in mankind in the 

 days of the Asclepiadae, the descendants of the god of medicine, 

 Aesculapius, by his sons Podalirius and Mechaon who spread 

 through Greece and Asia Minor, as an order of priests, prophets 

 and physicians, preserving the results of the medicine experi- 

 ence acquired in the temples as a hereditary sect. They were 

 the earliest physicians known to us, and it is not unlikely that 

 they may have been the first to observe the madness of dogs 

 transmitted to man." The contagion seems to chiefly reside in 

 the saliva, the infection being transmitted from animal to animal 

 and also to man by a bite from an affected subject. It is un- 

 doubtedly a specific disease due to a specific germ, although up 

 to the present time, notwithstanding careful investigation, the 

 germ has not yet been isolated. It is important, so far as sheep 

 are concerned, on account of their association with dogs, these 

 animals seeming to be more susceptible to this particular trouble 

 than any other species. 



Eabies is only transmissible by direct inoculation with the 

 saliva from an affected patient. The deposition of the virulent 

 saliva on an abraded surface will as readily produce the disease 

 as a bite from an affected animal. This should be borne in mind 

 when handling sheep which may have been bitten by a sup- 

 posedly rabid animal. 



