188 SPECIAL EQUINE THERAPY 



done with the expectation that the patient will, become 

 unmanageable within a few hours, and that great harm 

 may result if the patient should run amuck. 



2. Persons that have been bitten should be urged to 

 take the Pasteur treatment without delay. Therein lies 

 their only hope of escaping a horrible death. WhUe only 

 about two per cent of those bitten by horses have (on 

 record) developed hydrophobia, I advise against taking 

 a chance. On this point the veterinarian is sometimes 

 approached by persons who have accidentally come to 

 some injury about the patient for variable periods of 

 time before the animal developed symptoms. They desire 

 to know whether they should submit to the Pasteur treat- 

 ment. Persons who received wounds through some act 

 of the horse in question, accidentally or with vicious in- 

 tent on the part of the horse, ten days or less before the 

 horse showed symptoms of rabies, should take the Pasteur 

 treatment. Pathologists have found the saliva infectious 

 eight days before symptoms were evident. 



3. If the rabid horse has attacked and actually bitten 

 other horses in the same period of time or during the 

 active stage of the disease, they should be isolated for 

 sixty days. If no symptoms have developed by that time 

 they may be presumed non-infected. If the bitten horse, 

 or horses, should be of great value, the Pasteur treatment 

 should be begun at once. 



Cases of rabies occurring in mares with foal at side are 

 cause for isolating the colt for a period of sixty days, for 

 the reason that the disease has been conveyed, in some 

 cases, through the milk. The thorough disinfection of 

 the stall in which the rabid animal was confined is impera- 

 tive. While infection in any other manner than through 

 a bite is almost unknown, it is possible that the disease 

 could result from wounding of a part of the body with 

 objects contaminated by saliva or other materials. 



