Rabies and Hydrophobia. 313 



may possibly escape. Bouley says that a canine attendant is, in a 

 sense, a measure of protection to a man, as the rabid dog attacks 

 first the animal of his own species, giving the man a chance to 

 escape. 



In his wanderings the rabid dog will swim rivers, having no 

 dread of water, just as at home he will plunge his nose in water 

 though unable to swallow. When abroad in this way he exhausts 

 himself by his paroxysms and may perish in one of them, or he 

 may meet his death from man or animal. He may in his exhaust- 

 ed state seek a dark secluded place where he may remain for a 

 time and renew his travel later, or he may pass into the paralytic 

 condition and gradually sink. 



When shut up, and his vagrant disposition curbed, the parox- 

 ysms are liable to appear intermittently, a period of torpor and 

 quiet alternating with one of restless movement, searching, scrap- 

 ing, howling, biting of any animals within reach and later of men, 

 beginning with strangers. A paroxysm can usually be roused by 

 shaking a stick at him and always by presenting another dog. 



There is sometimes a difficulty in deglutition, the dog acting 

 as if he had a bone in his throat which he was trying to dislodge, 

 and fatal bites have been sustained during well meant attempts to 

 remove the hypothetical bone. This bears a resemblance to the 

 pharyngeal spasms which are such a marked feature in the hydro- 

 phobic man. But it is not roused, as in man, by the sight or 

 sound of water. On the contrary, water is sought and often 

 swallowed at first and even, exceptionally, throughout the disease. 

 He may even take his usual food for a time. The bowels are 

 usually torpid, and any faeces passed are black and foetid. Diar- 

 rhoea may set in later. 



In the early stages the rabid dog walks or trots like any other 

 dog. It is only when exhausted by wandering, or violent par- 

 oxysms, or both, that he droops his head and ears, hangs the 

 tail between the legs, and slouches along with arched back, and 

 unsteady, swaying limbs. The appearance of these last symp- 

 toms implies advancing debility and paresis, and the near ap- 

 proach of paraplegia. The symptoms may, however, be tem- 

 porarily relieved by a period of seclusion and quiet. 



In dumb or paralytic rabies the striking peculiarity is the omis- 

 sion of the preliminary furious stage, and the disease merges at 



