DISEASES OP THE BLOOD. 27 



and hysterical persons with the severest apprehension, 

 inducing symptoms almost resembling those of the disease. 

 An average amount of notoriety is a decided advantage as 

 ensuring the necessary legislative and other measures 

 required for the repression of rabies, which otherwise 

 would make headway, to the detriment of man and all 

 kinds of domesticated animals, no species of which, quad- 

 ruped or bird, is capable of resisting inoculation with 

 rabid virus. As we wish to deal with this disease espe- 

 cially on a sound practical basis, we shall in turn deal 

 with its diagnosis and its prevention. We may preface 

 these divisions of our subject by saying a little about 

 the other matters which require notice in a systematic 

 record of a disease. 



The symptoms of rabies should be examined only in so 

 far as is required for diagnosis, and can be ascertained 

 with safety to the observer and the public. Responsibility 

 lies with anyone who having a dog which he knows to be 

 " mad " keeps him alive and so runs the risk of his 

 escaping and injuring the public* This disease has 

 hitherto resisted curative treatment so obstinately that in 

 ordinary cases destruction of the patient should at once 

 follow exact diagnosis. This is a sound principle to go 

 on, with the distinct reservation that probably, in the 

 future, science will throw light on the treatment of specific 

 disorders to bring about cure, whereas she now can but 

 insist on prevention. We must leave the geography and 

 history of the disorder to be perused in such works as 

 Fleming's on ' Rabies and Hydrophobia,' where the sub- 

 ject is thoroughly dealt with. Thus there remains for our 

 consideration the question of how to determine the disease 

 when present and how to prevent its occurrence and 

 extension. 



Diagnosis. — Dogs affected with rabies differ much in 

 their mode of manifesting the disorder, such differences 

 depending to an extent on the habits of the animal in 

 health. These varieties in the symptoms have led canine 



* As has been legally established by a ruling of Lord Kenyon quoted by 

 Yonatt, ' The Dog,' p. 153. 



