Rabies and Hydrophobia. Lesio7is, treatment, prevention. 327 



minutes in a saturated alkaline solution of cosin, then 3 to 5 

 minutes in alkaline methyline blue, they form bright red objects 

 in the blue nerve cell. They are most easily discovered in ad- 

 vanced cases, and were shown in 344 out of 550 rabid dogs 

 (Poor). Similar bodies were found in one case of experimental 

 tetanus, and this, together with their absence- in many cases, 

 especially in the early stages, detracts from its value as a reliable 

 pathognomonic lesion. Negri and others, however, recognize in 

 these the etiological factors of the disease, and would predict 

 rabies or no rabies on their presence or absence. 



"When a practitioner has skill, leisure and laboratory facilities 

 to examine the plexiform ganglion or cerebellum as above, he 

 may gain valuable corroborative evidence, but standing alone, 

 neither is trustworthy in the early stages, so that the old well 

 attested means of diagnosis, by anamnesis, history, symptoms, 

 and gross lesions, remains as the generally applicable and reliable 

 diagnostic phenomena. 



Congestions of the peripheral nerves have also been found. 

 Iviittkemviller found in rabies a moderate increase of the white 

 blood corpuscles and a great number of microcytes. 



Therapeutic Treatment. Il was long thought that rabies was 

 necessarily 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 unless 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, 



