1895.] The Skunk as a Source of Rabies. 245 
and claws. Even human saliva is poisonous when injected into 
certain animals, as has been conclusively proved by our pres- 
ent Surgeon-General.” 
Now I have never been able to get hold of anybody, in 
Texas or elsewhere (of course, other than Dr. Janeway), that 
had ever seen a case of skunk rabies, or who had anything 
like definite evidence on the matter; “I have heard it,” “It is gen- 
erally believed,” etc., has been the utmost limit of ‘statements 
on this point. Some believe it themselves, but are completely 
“out of reasons for it.” One well-known naturalist puts his 
views on the question in this form: 
“Ist. The bite of the skunk often communicates rabies and 
death. 
“2nd. Skunk rabies kills more people than dog or wolf 
rabies. 
“3rd. To be bitten by a skunk is to risk a terrible death. 
“Ath. Beware of all skunks, for one can never tell when a 
rabid skunk will come along.” 
And perhaps this expresses intelligent, but incorrect, belief 
on the subject as well and accurately as it can be done. 
Therefore let us examine what the actual evidence on the 
matter is. Dr. Janeway, like any intelligent physician would 
do, refutes the self-originating idea of rabies in the skunk (and 
parenthetically, a physician with all the light of recent knowl- 
edge as to rabies, tells me that Dr. Janeway’s conclusions are 
singularly sound and conclusive, when the deficency of exact 
knowledge on the disease, then the case, is taken into consid- 
eration). That idea is such utter nonsense that only the erro- 
neous assertion of Dr. Janeway’s endorsement entitled it to a 
second thought. Then Dr. Janeway positively says in his 
paper in The Medical Record that rabies was epidemic when 
he made his observations, and he adds in his letter to me that 
this epidemic was so transient that in one year it had passed 
away. (Scientific men have suggested, as the probable ex- 
planation of such epidemics wearing themselves out, that the 
subjects die off faster than they can communicate the disease 
to fresh victims). A surgeon in what is now the central seat 
of belief in the “skunk-rabies” delusion has not heard of a 
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