July 18. 1896.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
58 
sion of the point at issue — whether a dog can cognize a 
portrait. That all men can not do so is quite certain, 
as all men have not the spiritual sense by which the indi- 
vidual is cognized through the personality. A Posteriori 
draws a picture of a man standing before a painting, pos- 
ing, trying to make up his mind whether it is a portrait. 
I have seen some great humbugs do that. 
A Posteriori says that one or two things that I have said 
in my letters are "only verbal." My reply would be that 
he who does not know how to use words may know how 
to think, but he does not know how to convey his ideas; 
and I doubt if his thinking is as clear as it might be. And 
I must insist that there was no essential difference between 
Shakespeare and the average man. The difference in 
Shakespeare's favor was in the strength of faculty and in 
the relative proportions and delicacy of arrangement of 
faculties. And I insist just as strongly that there is no 
essentia] difference between the average man and the 
lower animal; the difference in the average man's favor, 
in its manif oldupss, being the same as Shakespeare's, 
As to A Posteriori's very courteous attack upon my first 
letter and reply to his reply to that letter, I submit that 
he has not shown that my "proposition is not proven." 
He simply — as one is so apt to do — ^misapprehended the 
proposition, which was that the dog can — that one dog 
has — cognized a portrait, not re-cognize a portrait, though, 
as I said at the opening of this letter, I believe that a dog 
has the power to recognize a portrait. I do not lay this 
down as a proposition. I simply express it as a belief, my 
reasons for holding which belief I have partially men- 
tioned already in this letter, which is certainly long 
enough. Charles Josiah Adams. 
39 Lafayette Place, New York. 
Philadelphia. — Editor Forest and Stream: I am in- 
debted to Mr. W. Wade, Oakmont, Pa. , for a matter of 
important information conveyed in a personal letter to 
me and bearing on the dog's powers of cognition. I trust 
that he will accept this as an acknowledgment of the 
receipt of the information and my obligation to him for 
it. He writes: 
"One matter allied to the point you discussed with Mr. 
Adams has been overlooked: A dog recognizes a clay or 
china figure of a dog (such as are often kept in photo- 
graphers' shops) and circles around it, but when he touches 
it with his nose jumps away with evident fear and mys- 
tification, keeping very clear of that image as long as he 
remains in the room with it. I suppose the puzzled con- 
dition the dog is in before he noses the image comes from 
seeing a dog that he does not smell." 
This is really an important circumstance, though I ani 
inclined to interpret it as an exhibition of reasoning pow- 
ers, an association of ideas. The dog has come to asso- 
ciate certain odors with every kind of organic life, and 
finding what apparently is an odorless animal, one 
against aU his former experiences, tends to startle him. 
The dog trusts more to the sense of smell than to the 
sense of sight. When considered for a moment, it is not 
surprising that he does so. I for one do not believe that 
the sense of smell is more highly developed in the dog 
than it is in man. The physical difficulty which the dog 
labors under in being close to the ground would tend to 
the use of his nose on all occasions possible. The dog's 
eyes are but a few inches from the ground, and the closer 
the eyes are to the ground the more circumscribed is the 
area of vision. Let a man get down on all fours and he 
will at once have a practical demonstration of this fact. 
Again, by constantly using his nose to discern such ob- 
jects as he cannot see, the act would become habitual, 
and he would use his nose to supplement his eyesight. 
A Posteriori. 
Handlers and Owners. 
Owing to a combination of circumstances which ex- 
isted when the Handlers' Club was formed, and which 
could not be properly adjusted to coordinate with the 
policy of the club in the short time intervening between 
its organization and the holding of this season's field 
trials, it may find itself in an embarrassing position if 
it does not exercise good sense in the management of its 
affairs. AU the purposes of the club are most commend- 
able and tend both to the benefit of the handlers and the 
benefit of field trials. The possible complication may 
come from the following rulings: 
Rule No. 6 prohibits any member of the Handlers' 
Club from becoming a member of a field trial club, 
"and," it continues, "all members of this organization 
pledge themselves not to enter or handle a dog at any 
trial held by a field trial club of which a competing hand- 
ler is a member." 
That is all very well so long as a handler owns his own 
entries, or has so arranged his contracts as to be qualified 
according to that ruling. But many handlers had made 
contracts before the club was organized, and therefore 
the contracts were in existence before the rule was made 
known to the public or even before the rule existed. 
In Art, II. of the constitution the purposes of the club 
are set forth, and of these the following is one: "To en- 
force the conscientious performance and full completion 
of contracts between owners and members, if connected 
with dogs," etc. 
•Again, in the by-laws, under Rule 3, is the following 
mandatory requirement: "Every member shall fully and 
conscientiously perform contracts connected with dogs." 
As it would be a violation of contracts with the owners 
of dogs if the handlers were to refuse to run their dogs 
in the trials of a club having members who were also 
competitors, it is plain that there is a conflict between the 
rules and the situation. Owners did not have sufficient 
notice of the working of the Handlers' Club's rules, and 
as the contracts were not qualified according to such 
rules, the handlers are in honor bound to abide by their 
contracts. The other matter of a professional competitor 
being a club member can rest in abeyance till the club 
members can act without any embarrassment in the mat- 
ter of contracts, if they ever intend to take any club 
action in the matter. 
"What," asked the commander, anxiously, "ia that 
brisk firing off to the left?" 
"We are not yet definitely informed," replied the aid- 
de-camp, "whether it is a general engagement or a police- 
man shooting at a mad dog," 
With the fate of nations in the balance the tmcertainty 
was awful. — Detroit Tribwtie. 
HYDROPHOBIA AS A SIMULATED 
DISEASE. 
The following letter has been issued by the American 
Anti-Vivisection Society, of Philadelphia: 
We have observed with regret numerous sensational 
stories concerning alleged mad dogs and the terrible re- 
sults to human beings bitten by them, which are published 
from time to time in the newspapers. Such accoimts 
frighten people into various nervous disorders and cause 
brutal treatment of animals suspected of madness; and 
yet there is upon record a great mass of testimony from 
physicians asserting the extreme rarity of hydrophobia 
even in the dog, while many medical men of wide experi- 
ence are of the opinion that if it devielops in human beings 
at all it is only on extremely rare occasions; that the con- 
dition of hysterical excitement in man described by news- 
papers as "hydrophobia" is merely a series of symptoms, 
due usually to a dread of the disease, such dread being 
caused by realistic newspaper and other reports acting 
upon the imaginations of persons scratched or bitten by 
animals suspected of rabies. 
The late Dr. Hiram Corson, whose practice extended 
over a period of seventy years, during which time he 
searched diligently for the disease in man or animal, 
wrote under date of Jan. 18, 1896, "I have never had a 
real case of hydrophobia." 
Dr. Traill Green, a physician like Dr. Corson, accurate 
in observation, careful in statement, and whose practice 
also extends over a long period, writes under date of Jan. 
28, 1896, "I have never had a case of hydrophobia, nor 
have I ever seen a case" in the practice of other physi- 
cians. 
Dr. Matthew Woods, who has been in quest of the 
disease for twenty years, and who during two summers 
personally visited every case reported in Philadelphia, 
asserts that he never saw hydrophobia either in man or 
animal, and although six years ago, at the conclusion of 
a paper on the subject read before a large audience, he 
offered $100 to any person bringing him such a patient, 
yet so far no one nas claimed the reward. Dr. Woods 
furthermore adds that although he has questioned many 
physicians on the subject he has not yet found one who 
has ever seen hydrophobia either in man or animal. 
At the Philadelphia Dog Pound, where, on an aver- 
age, over six thousand vagrant dogs are taken up 
annually, and where the catchers and keepers are fre- 
quently bitten while handling them, not one case of 
hydrophobia has occurred during its entire history of 
twenty-five years, in which time about 150,000 dogs were 
handled. 
The well-known specialist. Dr. Edward C. Spitzka, Pro- 
fessor of Medical Jurisprudence and of the Anatomy and 
Physiology of the Nervous System in the New York Post- 
Graduate School of Medicine, and President of the New 
York Neurological Society, writes: "Much of the observa- 
tion of suspicious dogs is made through optics disturbed 
by fear, and by persons incompetent to interpret what 
they see. Notwithstanding every effort," he continues, 
"made by the writer to secure the observation of rabies 
in man or dog, not a single opportunity has offered 
itself during the last eight years" (the period of his obser- 
vation). 
The record of the London Hospital a few years ago 
showed 2,668 persons bitten by angry doRs. None of them 
developed hydrophobia. St. George's Hospital, London, 
records 4,000 patients bitten by dogs supposed to have 
been mad. No case of hydrophobia. 
In the record of all the diseases which have occurred at 
the Pennsylvania Hospital in 140 years only two cases 
which were supposed to be hydrophobia have occurred. 
One of these, however, the only one submitted to bacteri- 
logical test, did not confirm the diagnosis "hydrophobia," 
and the municipal authorities refused to accept the death 
as one from that disease. 
Finally, Dr. Charles W. Dulles, lecturer on the History 
of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, who has 
had the honor of being repeatedly appointed by the medi- 
cal societies of the State to investigate rabies, and has 
read various papers on the subject before the American 
Medical Association, the College of Physicians of Phila- 
delphia, the Philadelphia County Medical Society, the 
Medical Society of Pennsylvania, the Medico-Legal Society 
of New York, and has corresponded on the subject with 
most of the distinguished medical men of Europe, a phy- 
sician familiar both with the literature of rabies, the 
history of Pasteur and the institutions called by his name, 
and who in addition has performed the almost incredible 
task of investigating, either personally or by correspond- 
ence with the physician or others in attendance, every 
case reported in the newspapers of the United States for 
the past sixteen years, shows that hydrophobia is ex- 
tremely rare, so much so that he inclines to the view that 
"there is no such specific malady," having "after sixteen 
years of investigation failed to find a single case on record 
that can be conclusively prot^ed to have resulted from the 
bite of a dog or any other cause." 
In view, therefore, of the importance to the community 
of the above statements, may we not appeal to the press 
for their widest publication, and for the future suppres- 
sion in its columns of such alarming and misleading 
reports as we have above indicated? Their prominence 
and the air of reality they give to what are but erroneous 
interpretations of phenomena having an entirely different 
meaning cause much suffering, especially to nervous per- 
sons, and also much cruelty to man's faithful companion, 
the confiding dog. 
"I fully concur in the opinions expressed in the above 
letter. During an experience of forty-four years as a 
physician I have not seen a case of hydrophobia, and I am 
of the opinion that if newspapers could be prevailed upon 
to talk less about it the number of so-called attacks of 
the disease would be greatly diminished, as they are 
mainly forms of hysteria more due to the fear of hydro- 
phobia than to the absorption of animal virus." 
Theophilus Parvin, M.D., LL.D,, 
Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and 
Children, Jefferson Medical College; President of the 
National Academy of Medicine; Member of the Phil- 
adelphia Coimty Medical Society and of the College 
of Physicians and Surgeons, Philadelphia. 
"I entirely coincide with the views expressed in the 
above communication. During a period of more than 
thirty years as one of the stirgeons of the Pennsylvania 
Hospitel but two cases, so far as I know, have been brought 
there for the treatment of hydrophobia. One was under 
the care of the late Dr. John F, Meigs, with whom I saw 
the patient; death occurred shortly after admisBion The 
other case was in October last — a lad of four years uf age 
who had been bitten a month previously ; he died a few 
hours after admission, but the negative results of the 
bacteriological examination of the secretions, it appears, 
did not warrant the Board of Health's acceptance of the 
hospital certificate of death from hydrophobia." 
Thomas G. Morton, M.D., 
Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia; 
President of the Philadelphia Academy of Surgery; 
Senior Surgeon to Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadel- 
phia. 
"I have seen many patients suffering from what was 
called hydrophobia, both in my own practice and in con- 
sultation with other physicians, yet all were f-xamples of 
diseases of entirely different character with symptoms 
resembling those supposed to be symptoms of hydropho- 
bia. I do not feel justified in saying that hydrophobia 
does not exist, but I have never seen a so-called case 
that could not be explained on some other view than 
that of the introduction of a specific morbid virus. 
Although I have taken special pains to find a clear case 
of hydrophobia in the human subject, I have not yet 
succeeded." Charles K. Mills, M.D., 
Professor of Mental Diseases and of Medical Jurispru- 
dence, University of Pennsylvania; Neui-ologist to 
the Philadelphia Hospital; Professor of Nervous Dis- 
eases, Woman's Medical College, Philadelphia. 
"I believe the publication of the above letter will be a 
benefit to the community already unnecessarily alarmed 
over the supposed danger of dog bite. I atn of the opin- 
ion that the bite of a dog is no more dangerous than the 
scratch of a pin or the puncture of an infectious nail, but 
because of exaggerated printed and oral accounts the 
picture of hydrophobia is so stamped upon the public 
mind that the thought of it, after being bitten by a dog, 
throws imaginative people into such panics of nervous ex- 
citement that they unconsciously reproduce its supposed 
symptoms. 
"Although I have practiced surgery in private and in 
many of the hospitals of Philadelphia for the past twenty 
years, I have never seen a case of hydrophobia either in 
man or dog, nor do I know of any other physician or sur- 
geon who has, 
"The late Samuel D. Gross, M.D., D.C.L., the vener- 
able Professor of Surgery in the Jefferson Medical College, 
with whom I was associated for many years, and whose 
large practice included every known medical and surgical 
disorder, never saw a case of hydrophobia." 
Joseph W. Hearn, M.D , 
Fellow of the Philadelphia College of Physicians and 
Surgeons and of the Philadelphia Academy of Sur- 
geons; Professor of Clinical Surgery, Jefferson Medi- 
cal College. 
"The above letter to the press on the subject of hydro- 
phobia meets with my approval, as I believe that if there 
is such a disease it is exceedingly rare. I have never 
seen a case, and I believe that the publication of exag- 
gerated reports of what are sometimes called hydrophobia 
cause much unnecessary suffering both to human beings 
and dogs." Solomon Solis Cohen, M,D,, 
Prof esse r of Clinical Medicine and Therapeutics in the 
Philadelphia Polyclinic and College for Graduation 
in Medicine; Clinical Lecturer on iledicine at Jeffer- 
son Medical College, Philadelphia. 
"I am glad of the opportunity to express my concur- 
rence in the plan and need of the above letter. Durmg 
an experience of twenty-five years in the active practice 
of medicine I have not seen a case of real rabies in man 
or animal, but I know that people who may have been 
bitten by dogs are sometimes frightened into hysterical 
conditions in which they involuntarily reproduce all the 
supposed symptoms of hydrophobia. Besides, there are 
many other disorders, as for example angina and cynanche 
of the fauces, to mention but two, connected with the 
respiratory apparatus, where the symptoms are similar to 
those supposed to be symptoms of hydrophobia, such as 
difficulty and often impossibility of swallowing water, 
a feeling of horror at the mere idea of having to swallow, 
convulsive movements, delirium, slavering at the mouth, 
etc. In such cases the popular picture of hydrophobia 
seems to be complete, and it is not at all strange that they 
are sometimes mistaken for the volatile disorder. The 
publication of the above letter is calculated to do much 
good, inasmuch as its lucid presentation of contemporary 
opinion is such as to properly convince the timid that 
there is no more danger from a dog bite than from any 
other wound." Thomas J. Mays, M.D., 
Fellow of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of 
Philadelphia; Member of the American Medical Asso- 
ciation; Professor of Diseases of the Chest in the 
Philadelphia Polyclinic; Visiting Physician to the 
Rush Hospital for Consumptives, Philadelphia. 
**Is Death the EndT" 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Without any reference whatever to an answer to the 
question at the head of this note, I desire to set Mr. J . B. 
Davis right on one point in which he treats this question 
in Forest and Stream of July 11, He says: "The burden 
of proof is with those who aver that death marks the 
end." Mr. Davis here ignores the universal ruling that it 
devolves on the affirmative to prove its proposition. 
Otherwise arguments would soon become meaningless 
and unending. One man might lay down the proposition 
that the moon was made of green cheese; another man 
might take the negative side, but the first man might de- 
clare that it devolved on the negative to prove that it was 
not so, and if he could not so prove the proposition stood 
as proven. As I said before, I have no intention of dis- 
cussing the question; I desire to point out the fallacious 
reasoning. A Posteriori. 
Under recent date Mr. G. A. Buckstaff, Oshkosh, Wis., 
writes us as follows: "I have sold to Otto E. Baehr, St. 
Louis, Mo,, my beagle Royal Dick. He is a field trial 
champion of the 13in. class. He has won one first and 
one second in the open class for 13in. dogs at the Chicago 
shows in 1895 and '96. If properly handled he will be 
heard from on the bench in the next few years. Some 
of his yoimg stock will be in the field trials this fall. 
