"s Hydrophobta.”’ 163 
Cases of reputed hydrophobia are frequently mentioned in 
the public papers; but, if carefully analysed, the greatest pro- 
portion of them would be rejected as spurious. Amongst 
these are instances where persons of a highly nervous tem- 
perament have been bitten, and are so wrought upon by 
the fear of “hydrophobia,” that symptoms become developed 
which pass, even among medical men, for the disease. Here 
is a case in point. It may be well to give it as I communi- 
cated it to the Country, while every circumstance was fresh in 
my memory. A woman, while attending to her child on the 
first floor of a house in one of the suburban parishes of 
London, saw a small strange dog enter the room (it had 
lived in the house recently with the former occupants, and 
therefore its visit to its old home was quite natural), and, 
being alarmed for the safety of her child, seized the intruder 
and endeavoured to: throw it out of the window, when the 
dog, in the struggle, with great good sense, bit the woman on 
the hand, in self-defence. She at once called in a resident 
surgeon and had the wound cauterised. From my knowledge 
of the locality, I should say an interval of twenty minutes 
would probably have elapsed. A few days afterwards, she 
went on a visit to the country under strong apprehension on 
the score of “hydrophobia,” and some time afterwards re- 
turned with symptoms which the medical man, on being 
again called in, pronounced to be those of ‘“hydrophobia.” 
She died about two months after the bite was inflicted. At 
the inquest, before a well-known London coroner, witnesses 
detailed the facts given above, and the medical attendant 
gave evidence to the effect that the death resulted from 
“hydrophobia,” arising from the bite of a mad dog, and it was 
so recorded! I took much trouble to ascertain that the dog 
was of very quiet disposition, that the family to whom he 
‘belonged kept him shut up subsequently to prevent him from 
being lynched, and that he was alive and well after the 
woman’s death. Here was a verdict, given by a ¢oroner’s 
jury, in direct opposition to the facts, which could have 
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