236 THE MANAGEMENT AND DISEASES OF THE DOG. 



Pain may produce frenzy, but not rabies. A dog may be 

 driven frantic witli torture or furious witli rage, but his bite 

 is harmless so far as the production of rabies 'is concerned. 

 Were it not so, what a fearful result must follow ! Where we 

 have now one case of the disease, we should have hundreds ! 

 Indeed they would be daily occurring, and no individual who 

 possessed a dog would be secure. 



No one distinct breed is more liable to it than another. 



Mongrels (particularly homeless ones) are perhaps more 

 frequently ailected than other classes, and this is more likely 

 from the manner of their roving from place to place, coming 

 into contact with strange dogs, and usually those of their own 

 kind; added to which, they are reared in filth and live by 

 scavenging. 



How often, after an outbreak of rabie j, do we hear that a 

 strange dog has been seen in the neighborhood, belonging to 

 nobody knows who, and generally described as a mongrel .' 



Dogs are especially inclined to fraternize, or, at all events, 

 to inspect one another ; and this, as with human paupers, is 



are in immediate excision or suction, if possible, of the part, and the ap- 

 plication of nitric acid or lunar caustic. 



"That many diseases have been mistaken by persons having a smat- 

 tering of-the dog knowledge for hydrophobia [rabies canma), particularly 

 epilepsy. 



" That I have no doubt a person, whose nervous system is highly sen- 

 sitive, may, from the excitement consequent on the bite of a dog (especi- 

 ally a ferocious one), exhibit symptoms resembling hydrophobia, and that 

 it is probably from such cases as these that Dr. Verity has derived his imagi- 

 nation of a cure. 



" That individuals ever have true hydrophobia from pure fright, I do 

 lot for a moment believe. 



" That in all supposed cases of hydrophobia, the public may rest as- 

 sured that either the inoculation was not hydrophobic, or that the saliva 

 was wiped off when the teeth passed through the garments. 



" That in all instances where the animal which has inflicted the wound 

 is suspected of rabies, he should be confined, and not slaughtered, until a 

 sufficiently long period has elapsed to prove the suspicion correct or other- 

 wise. This, if it were adopted, would soon test the truth of enumerated 

 cures and the value of marvellous specifics." 



