154, ' The Carnivora. 
may be affected by it, and, on account of their habit of 
using their’ teeth in attack and defence, they are especially 
likely to communicate it to man and other animals. Although, 
on this account, the carnivora are more frequently the sub- 
jects and bearers of the disease, it can probably be com- 
municated from any mammal.to any other, and thence to 
man. It is certain that it can be communicated, both by the 
natural bite and by inoculation, to the horse, ass, ox, rabbit, 
rat, guinea pig, as well as to every species of canis, wild or 
domesticated; and some of these are known to be able to 
transmit it to man as well as to other animals. 
Until a very few years ago, it was believed that rabies 
might, and often did, originate in the subject owing to patho- 
logical changes in the blood or the cerebral matter itself, 
due perhaps to starvation, want of water, excessive heat or 
cold, long continued confinement, ill-treatment, or other causes 
disposing to constitutional disturbance. Experiments, how- 
ever, conducted with the utmost care by foreign physiologists, 
and extending over a large field and a protracted period, 
failed to show generation of the disease in any case. It may, 
then, be almost certainly concluded to be rarely, if ever, of 
spontaneous origin. Thus there is hope of extinguishing it 
altogether, or reducing it to a minimum, if, as is now gene- 
rally conceded by the best veterinary authorities, the malady 
can be communicated only by the bite of a rabid animal. 
The presumption in favour ‘of communication solely by this 
means, is immensely strengthened by the following facts. 
Rabies is known to have been imported into the island of 
Mauritius in 1813, and has ever since been prevalent there, no 
restrictions on the importation of European and other . dogs 
having been at any time adopted. On the contrary, it has 
never been recorded in the neighbouring island of Réunion, 
where strict measures prohibitory of importation have for 
long been enforced. The disease has never made its appear- 
ance in Australia, Tasmania, or New Zealand, though thou- 
sands of dogs have, from time to time, been imported into 
