284 Veterinary Medicine. 



tioii, capillary clots, minute haemorrhages, and accumulations 

 around the affected capillaries of leucocytes occupying the lymph 

 spaces. Benedikt and Babes attach much importance to the for- 

 mation of hyaline patches in the thickened walls of the vessels 

 and around them, compressing the vessels in some cases to virtual 

 obliteration. The nerve cells swell up, and show small hyaline 

 bodies in the vicinity of the nuclei, and these latter finally disap- 

 pear. Germano and Capobianco found in addition marked hyper- 

 plasia of the neuroglia. Babes, who looks on these changes as 

 pathognomonic, takes a small portion of spinal .cord, hardens it in 

 alcohol for 24 hours, .stains it with aniline red and examines for 

 the characteristic hyaline nodes. 



The.se brain lesions have been found mainly in the medulla near 

 the floor of the fourth ventricle and the respiratory center, but 

 they are also to be found in other parts of the encephalon and 

 spinal cord. The greater constancy of the medullary lesions 

 Serves to explain the characteristic symptoms. 



Conge.stions of the peripheral nerves have also been found. 

 Ltittkemiiller found in rabies a moderate increase of the white 

 blood corpsules and a great number of microcytes. 



Therapeutic Treatment. It was long thought that rabies was 

 nece,ssarily fatal, as indeed nearly all developed cases are to the 

 present day. For this reason and much more on account of the 

 risk of preservation and propagation of the deadly germ, the at- 

 tempts at curative treatment in the lower animals have been looked 

 on as utterly unwarranted or absolutely criminal. Yet it is now 

 known that very exceptionally a recovery takes place, and in that 

 case immunity for the future may be counted on. Yet the fright- 

 ful danger attendant on the preservation and treatment of a rabid 

 animal, may well forbid the keeping of any of the lower animals 

 affected by rabies unle.ss it be in the safest seclusion and for the 

 production of immunizing or curative products. 



Orrotherapy with the blood serum of an immunized animal 

 is of little value, and attended by risk from the rabid animal, but 

 will be noticed below as a prophylactic. 



In man when the disease is manifested, palliation has been ob- 

 tained and very exceptionally recovery, under darkness, quiet, 

 nutritious enemata and antispasmodics or soporifics. Among such 

 antispasmodics and nerve sedatives may be named chloroform. 



