288 CASES OP RABIES. 



most of them emitting that loud, snuffing sound (caused by a 

 violent expulsion of air through the nostrils,) by which rams, 

 bulls, etc., often express their rage at the approach of some 

 strange object. Two of them opened their mouths, gnashing 

 and threatening to bite, whenever they attacked a man or a 

 stick, but I did not see them offer to bite when fighting their 

 companions. On the fourth or fifth day the wounds of a portion 

 of them, more or less, re-opened. On the fifth or sixth day 

 they began to exhibit considerable weakness, and most of them 

 displayed less ferocity. No. 1, however, remained indomit- 

 ably savage to the last ; No. 3 remained so untU near death ; 

 and No. 6, after a temporary lull, became more deeply 

 re-excited and ferocious, and remained so until death. These 

 three last named sheep would rush at a man, a stick, or 

 another sheep, when they were so weak as frequently to fall 

 before reaching their object, and as soon as they could rise 

 they would renew the attack. They and others frequently 

 fought each other when in this condition, constantly falling, 

 and some of them uttering short, bleating sounds, or groaning 

 piteously when they were hurt. Their voices on such 

 occasions were more shrill and plaintive than the notes of 

 the healthy sheep ; but the only one I heard utter the usual 

 prolonged bleat, with which sheep call to each other, or to 

 their keeper, uttered it in the natural key ; and this was on 

 the sixth day of the disease.* 



On the sixth day, one of the sheep began to rub her 

 breech,, often and hard, against the fence, and she continued 

 this, more or less, until death. From the appearance of the 

 parts, I inferred this was occasioned by an irritation of the 

 vagina. 



Those which exhibited the greatest decrease of aggressive- 

 ness, as their strength failed, never resumed the usual timid 

 habits of their nature. They retreated from nothing ; and to 

 the last if a man entered their pen and threatened them with 

 a stick, they instantly attacked him. 



The prostration of strength progressed with different 

 degrees of rapidity, owing probably to their different degrees 

 of constitutional vigor ; but all showed much and rapidily 

 increasing debility by the close of the sixth day. Their 

 respiration was labored and sometimes irregular. The pulse 



• Their notes were in no case very " mnch altered " from tlie nsual ones which 

 indicate rage, pain, &c., and the " howl of the dog," said by Mi*. Youatt to be " char- 

 acteristic of the disease," was entirely wanting. I do not suppose, however, Mr. 

 Youatt meant to be understood literally, but merely that the key of their voices was 

 changed, and rendered high and plaintive, as in the case of the rabM dog. 



