162 The Carnivora. 
the cases reported by those who have seen them recover, and 
in publishing only unsuccessful cases, or those where there 
has been an error in the diagnosis, thereby forming er- 
roneous ideas in the public mind.” In the course of his 
own experience, M. Decroix, who is an Honorary Associate 
of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons of England, 
and a sound canine pathologist, has met with two cases of 
recovery. 
There is, without doubt, very insufficient acquaintance on 
the part of medical men generally with the diagnosis of 
“‘hydrophobia” in the human subject; and a great many 
cases must be annually recorded of death from assumed 
'“hydrophobia,” which, though following on the bite of a 
dog, are not due to rabies in the animal that inflicted the 
bite, but may probably be ascribed to traumatic tetanus. The 
following letter, published in the Daily News of 14th Sept., 
1880, is significant in this connection :-— 
“There are strong reasons for deciding positively that the 
case recently described in a police court, where a boy showed 
strange symptoms some time after being bitten by a dog, is 
not one of hydrophobia. (1) The symptoms are not those of 
hydrophobia; (2) No human being has yet been known to live 
a week after showing the first signs of the disease; (3) No 
dog suffering from rabies ever lives more than eight days, and 
very few reach the fifth (in this case the dog that inflicted 
the bite is still alive and well); (4) The bite of a dog cannot 
give rise to hydrophobia unless the animal be absolutely 
rabid at the time it inflicts the wound. It may be safely 
accepted as a fact that no bite can cause hydrophobia if the 
dog be alive eight days after inflicting the bite. This is a 
positive test of the condition of the wound, and all dogs 
causing a suspicious wound should be retained under observa- 
tion for a week at least. By destroying a dog immediately 
after it has bitten anyone, we destroy the most valuable and 
positive evidence of the nature of the wound.—Your obedient 
servant, Wm Hvwrine, F.R.C.V.S.” 
