244 The Management and Diseases of the Dog. 
it were a modern invasion) was well recognised by the 
ancient Greeks and Romans, and if we are to believe 
history, the prophylactic value of the hot-bath and accom- 
panying sweat for bitten persons was well understood by 
Celsus. 
Further information on this point may be obtained from 
the Blue Book containing the evidence of the various wit- 
nesses who attended the select committee on rabies in the 
House of Lords, 1887. 
The influence of climate, season, or sex, would appear to 
have little bearing on the subject.* The so-called dog-days 
no more act in the production of rabies than does cold. In 
the hottest season of the hottest years, statistics show fewer 
cases, while in tropical countries, Australia to wit, it has as 
yet been unrecognised. Heat is more likely to generate 
brain affections other than rabies. 
With regard to sex, male and female are alike disposed 
to it, and various conditions of system in the latter, as cata- 
menia, pregnancy, or suckling, have no influence on the 
disease, though they may produce symptoms of other cere- 
bral aberrations. 
* “Professor Guiseppe Canettoli (‘Lo Sperimentale,’ June, 1875) 
summaries his studies and researches in hydrophobia in the following 
propositions: 
“1. Hydrophobia is a disease of all climates and seasons. 
“2, Extreme climates yield the smallest contingent of cases, and are 
therefore, it may be said, privileged. 
“3. The disease is spontaneous in the dog, and communicable to 
other animals and to mankind. 
“4. Nothing has been discovered of the nature of the malady or 
autopsies. 
“5. The disease may be prevented by having recourse to timely 
cauterisation—the best means being the galvano-caustic. 
“6, Finally, to explain the duration of incubation, Canettoli supposes 
that the saliva ofthe rabid dog is not in itself a poison, but that it 
becomes so through prolonged retention in the living tissues into which 
it has been inoculated.”—“ Veterinary Journal,” Oct., 1876. 
