Rabies and Hydrophobia. Lesions, treatment, preventio7i. 2i'^g 



muzzling was enjoined. In 1892 the cases were reduced to 3, 

 and the muzzling law was. suspended, and a steady yearly en- 

 crease resulted, until the ist three months of 1896 furnished as 

 many as 72 cases. 



In the absence of this radical measure muzzling should be en- 

 forced for a year in any locality where a case of rabies has oc- 

 curred, and every dog should wear a collar with the name and 

 residence of his owner inscribed on it. All stray dogs and all 

 unmuzzled ones should be summarily shot. Dogs and cats that 

 have been bitten by rabid animals should be destroyed or shut up 

 in cages for six riionths under veterinary supervision. Imported 

 dogs should be similarly secluded. Dogs that have bitten animals 

 •or men should be shut up for ten days under supervision, when, 

 if rabid, the animal will develop unequivocal symptoms. 



Treatment of bites . Absorption from a wound in a limb may 

 be prevented by applying a tourniquet. Wounds on the body 

 may be cupped, or sucked through a tube. Or the wound may 

 be wrung to encrease the flow of blood. As soon as possible it 

 should be thoroughly cauterized. A hot skewer, a Paquelin 

 cautery, a stick of silver nitrate or zinc chloride or caustic potash 

 or a crystal of cupric sulphate will meet this end. If liquid 

 caustics are to be employed they can be applied to all parts of the 

 wound by means of a pipette, a glass tube, or swab. 



With thorough cauterization shortly after the bite there is 

 practically nothing to fear, and even if it has not been applied 

 for hours after, it is still valuable in destroying the poison left in 

 the wound from which a continuous infection of the brain, by 

 the transmission of the unknown germ and its toxins, would 

 otherwise take place. It has besides, in the human being, a good 

 moral effect against lyssophobia by giving the bitten person a 

 certain sense of protection. 



The Pasteur Method. This is based on the fact that the spinal 

 cord of the rabid rabbit when removed aseptically, and kept in 

 -vitro in a dry atmosphere, loses in virulence day by day, until on 

 the fourteenth day it is harmless. To render the air more drying, 

 caustic potash is introduced into the flask. The culture of the 

 poison in rabbits intensifies its virulence, until the virus becomes 

 the strongest known and whea inoculated subdurally, reduces 

 the incubation to six or seven days. 



