Dec. 11, 1897.J 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
473 
he is old enough to take the responsibility. I am not old 
enough — that's sure — and might not be with a century added, 
but -when I go to church — as I do sometimes — I am in- 
structed in iheology by a man half my age— one who was 
not on earth while I was playing the parts of hunter, trap- 
per and soldier; and yet this young man talks to me as if I 
were a sinner, which I deny. I have been provoked to say 
this because the Hon. Amos J. Cummings, Sergt. -Major of 
the 26th New Jersey Volunteers, who is eight years younger 
than I— a kid who would not have been permitted to carry 
my fish when I was sixteen years old— is now a member of 
Congress; and when his party has been in the ascendant he 
has been chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs. 
When his party was in the minority he was still a member 
of that committee and has worked hard to build up a navy 
that will have to bear the brunt of our next war, for we will 
have no more internecine wars on this continent, now that 
there is no cause for such a war. 
These thoughts float up as I think that Amos Cummings 
has done such work in Congress; has been proposed as a 
candidate for Mayor of New York several times, barely 
missing it last fall, when a nomination would have been 
equivalent to an election ; and I look down on him as a boy 
who was not fit to follow me on a fishing trip when I was 
half way to the proud distinction of being a "big boy" and 
he was only a "kid," but in the whirligig of time the big boy 
gets set back among the "has beens" and the kid comes to 
the fore. 
I have fished with Cummings many times, before and 
after the incidents related, and for a jovial companion in 
camp, let it be wet or dry, the fishing good or bad, I know 
of no one who would enliven the company with song or 
story better than my friend the Hon. Amos J. Cummings; 
and, if he had his violin with him— which he never has — the 
musical experts would move their ears forward and ask who 
was the virtuoso who was, by the aid of rosin, drawing the 
horsehair over the bowels of the cat and making such a cm- 
cord of sweet sounds. 
CHICAGO AND THE WEST. 
Illinois and Florida. 
Chicago, 111., Dec. 4.— The Governor of Florida last April 
issued a call for a National Fishery Congress to meet at 
Tampa. Fla , Wednesday, Jan. 19, 1898, and to sit one 
week. Gov. Blosham's letter of promulgation was sent to 
the Governors of all the different States of the Union, the 
following specification being embodied as aid in the appoint- 
ment of suitable delegates : 
"The personriel of the Congress will consist of delegates 
from the National and State Fish Commissions, representa- 
tives of State and foreign governments, members of angling 
and fishery associations, and of persons interested in the 
commercial fisheries, fish protection and fishculture. 
Special sessions will be devoted to the consideration of fish, 
oyster and sponge cultivation; fishery protection and legisla- 
tion; the economic fisheries and angling. All persons will 
have free access to the sessions. The actual participation of 
all delegates in the p'oceedings is invited. Those who in- 
tend to present papers are requested to communicate as soon 
as possible the titles of their addresses." 
Gov. Tanner, of Illinois, has not yet announced any name 
for the post of delegate to this convention, but informal 
talk with the State game warden leads to the conviction 
that the eflicient member of the Illinois Fish Commission, 
Dr. S. P. Bartlett, will represent this State next month in 
Florida. 
Great Northern Pike. 
The angling waters of Minnesota have yet to receive their 
proper exploitation. Years ago a friend of mine told we 
that Forest and Stream should some day get up into the 
chain of lakes runnfng off above the Leech Lake system into 
the Rainy Lake region, He said he had a friend living up 
in there who told him that the fish grew so big that no 'man 
could catch them, they tearing up any sort of tackle that 
could be found for them, At the time 1 thought these were 
muscallonge, and were perhaps being pursued by a man who 
did not understand the game. To-day I am not sure that 
they were not the Great Northern pike, which in some of 
those waters attain, great size. Some of the lakes of that 
region cpntain both the pike and the "lunge. Mr. H. G Mc- 
Cartney, of Kabekona Camp, brings in a photograph of a 
take of Great Northern pike made in Thunder Lake, Cass 
county, by Dr. West, of Council Bluffs, la., and his friend 
W. L' a. Wad dell, of Kansas City, one day last summer. 
These gentlemen got trace of no 'lunge in that water, but 
said the pike were good enough for them. Weights of 15 to 
251bs. were not unusual, and they said the fish foueht well. 
1 do not have at hand data of the exact weights of the fish 
shown in the photograph handed me, but the fish appear 
very large, the great depth of body being very noticeable. 
The catch shown must have offered sport fit for the most 
fastidious angler. E. Houoh. 
1206 BoYCE Building, Chicago. 
Smelt Fishing in Boston Harbor. 
Boston, Dec. 4. — Editar Foi'est and Stream- The smelt 
fishing season hereabouts is almost over, and in the main 
it has been up to the average of past years. To many who 
can only get a day off now and then smelt fishing offers rare 
sport, and it is availed of by a much larger number than 
anyone has an idea of, scattered, as they are, over a large 
field of operation. When smelts are running they are to be 
found in all the little bays and creeks from Nantasket to 
the Nepanset River, and boats containing from one to 
three persons are found on all convenient waters between 
those points. 
During the fall I have heen playing in great luck — what 
Br'er Hough would call Forest and Stream luck — in re- 
gard to this great sport. Mr. John N. Roberts, called 
Commodore, and properly too, by his friends, invited me 
to be his guest at his cottage on Paddock's Island, opposite 
Hull, whenever I chose; and it is needless to say that I 
"chose" frequently, staying from one to three and four 
■days, as circumstances and the smelts permitted. The 
Commodore's cottage is a most comfortable one — the best 
of beds, a good larder, an excellent cook (the Commodore 
himself) — and all a guest has to do is to get himself down 
there, the genial host does the rest; the guest is expected 
to do his share at the oars, and if he is too much of a ten- 
derfoot to do that he is liable to get "roasted." I found 
that out early, and soon got to be fairly good at the oars. 
When the tide served right for the early morning fish- 
ing the alarm clock was set for the hour of 4; a hasty but 
sufficient breakfast was soon dispatched, and we were on 
the fishing grounds before sunrise. On none of my visits 
did we fail to get smelts, and on several days we had great 
fishing; on one occasion we caught 4.31bs. in five hours. 
The last time I was down the weather was pretty cold, but 
we had fine fishing, getting a run of much larger fish than 
usual, and we made up several packages of handsome 
smelts for friends in the city. Altogether 1 have to thank 
Com. Roberts for lots of sport this fall. 
William B. Smart, 
A Prize Lobster. 
One of the sights of Quincy Market is a 24itlb. lobster, 
which is set up at the stall of Shattuck & Jones. The fish 
was caught in Dorchester Bay about six weeks since in a 
perch seine. Its length is nearly :^ft., and it is very hand- 
somely mounted under glass, representing the fish as being 
served on a platter. The small lobster traps now used are 
of little use to calch a mammoth of this size. The fish at- 
tracts great attention, and is said to be the largest on record, 
which with its perfect proportions makes it a highly prized 
trophy of the deep. — Boston Evening Record. 
ImmL 
F I XTU RES. 
BENCH SHOWS. 
Dec. 8.— Rhode Island Poultry Association's show, Pawtuxet, R. I. 
S H. Roberts, Sec'y. 
189S. 
Jan. 11.— Butterly Bench Show Association's sTiow, Qrand Rapids, 
Mich. Miss Grace H Qriswoltl. Sec'y. 
Feb. 15.— New England Kennel Club's fourteenth annual show, 
Boston. James L. Little, Sec'y. 
Feb. ai.—Westminstpr Kennel Club's twenty-second annual show, 
New Yorlr. G. de-F. Grant, Sec'y. 
.—St Louis Kennel Club's third annual show, St. Louis, Mo. 
Wm. Hutchinson, Sec'y. 
FIELD TRIALS. 
Dec, 8.— Hoosier Beagle Club trials, Danville, Ind. F. D. Norveil, 
Sec'y. 
1898. 
Jan. 10.— U. S. F, T Club's winter trials, West Point, Miss. W. B 
Stafford, Sec'y. 
•Ian. 17 —Continental F. T. Club's trials, New Albany, Miss. W S 
Bell. Sec'y. 
Jan. -a —Pacific Coast Field Trial Club s trials, Bakersfleld. Cal. J. 
M Kilgarif, Sec'y. 
Jan. a. Champion Field Trial AsEOciation's Champion Stake, 
Tucelo. Miss. W. B. Stafford, Sec'y. 
Feb. 7. Alabama Field Trial Club's second annual trials, Madison. 
Ala. H K. Milner, Sec'y. 
HYDROPHOBIA. 
This paper is presented more wdfch the idea of calling at- 
tention to enforcing the fact that there is a reliable remedy 
for animal poison than to offer any new developments in re- 
gard to hydrophobia. Little that is new and undisputed 
has been discovered since the report of the American Medical 
Association in 1856. We are still confronted with contradic- 
tory theories and strange anomalies, which are only to be 
explained from the vantage ground of one who realizes that 
disease is nob an entity, but rather a remedial effort, and 
that relief come.'i only by our ability to recognize and assist 
the vital forces in their inevitable conflict with all foreign 
material. 
Although hydrophobia is one of the rarest and most fatal 
of acute infectious diseases, and is produced only by inocu- 
lation of a specific animal poison, which manifests itself by 
symptoms due to a disturbance of the central nervous sys- 
tem, it is mitigated by the more important fact that the 
period of incubation is longer than that of any other acute 
specific disease. This period is variable, rarely less than a 
month, in some cases reaching nine or twelve months, the 
average being six or seven weeks, which gives opportunity 
for remedial measures that, as we will endeavor to show, are 
ample to eradicate the poison. 
The etiology of hydrophobia is so well known that it needs 
but a fevr words of description; mainly coming from the 
saliva of dogs, rarely from cats or other animals, it is a well 
recognized fact that the disease never originates in the 
human species. Its spontaneous origin is confined to the 
lower animals that do not perspire. The investigations of 
scientists all over the world have as yet failed to determine 
the true cause of this terrible malady, although the fact 
seems to be well settled that the disease occurs much more 
frequently among the male than among the female dogs or 
other animals. Inoculation may arise from a bite, scratch, 
or from a lick upon an abrasion. Instances have been giveii 
where the disease came from the lick of a dog that was not 
mafl. 
A puzzling case occurred some years ago in England. A 
boy fourteen years of age, while playing with a Scotch ter- 
rier, was bitten slightly on the hand. Three weelis later he 
became ill, and died in terrible convulsions. The physicians 
pronounced it a genuine case of hydrophobia; but a girl who 
had been bitten by the same dog appeared to haveluft'ered 
no harm, and, more remarkable still, the dog was examined 
by a competent veterinary surgeon and pronounced perfectly 
healthy. Such cases are not uncommon. 
When preventive measures are adopted as soon as possible 
the larger number of persons escape. Children are the 
greatest sufferers from being helpless and more exposed 
and their cases are not open to the charge of simulated or 
spurious disease, and at the same time they are a complete 
refutation of the theory held by some authorities that there 
is no such disease. 
The fact that during the period of incubation there are 
commonly no symptoms is liable to lead to a sense of false 
security. But that is the time to adopt vigorous measures 
of prevention. Occasionally there is pain or discomfort at 
the seat of the wound, and sometimes mental depression 
which may arise from anxiety regarding possible conse- 
quences. Even the onset of the disease is rarely attended 
by pain or inflammation in the wound. The first evidence 
ot the impending disorder is usually mental depression, dis- 
turbed sleep, discomfort about the throat, with difficulty in 
swallowing liquids; even the attempt occasions spasms 
which soon involves the muscles of respiration. The inten- 
sity of all these symptoms increases within a few hours, until 
the mere sight of water will cause a.spasm. The i-eason is 
frequently lost, and the end from ex'haustion is assured in 
from one to six or eight days. 
The varieties of this disease are as great as in any other 
because each case is modified by the condition of the systern 
and the vital reactive powers of the individual. 
If there is a prospect of relief from the horrors of hydro- 
phobia, this relief may well claim our earnest attention. It 
is well known that from the bite of a rabid dog there is a 
period varying from seven days to six months before the 
more acute symptoms manifest themselves This gives ample 
time to eliminate the poison from the system. In "Todd's 
Clinical Lectures" occurs thi.s passage: "Large evacuations 
by sweating may be employed more freely and with less dis- 
advantage to patients than by any other secretion." This is 
also demonstrated by the fact that many diseases are daily 
being cured by some form of sweating bath, and that physi- 
cians are more and more using that form of treatment. In 
China and other countries, as well as our own, sweating has 
been successfully used in the elimination of malarial poison. 
Another proof is that in some Eastern countries the sweating 
bath is used to cure the poison of snake bite, which is much 
more rapid in its action than the poison from the saliva from 
a rabid dog. It will also readily be seen that treating this 
malady from the outset is a very different thing fronT wait- 
ing until the poison has become absorbed and permeated the 
whole system, and the paroxysms have set in, when in truth 
there is little hope of cure under any treatment. 
Hydrophobia belongs to that large class designated as fer- 
ment diseases, which depend upon the introduction and de- 
velopment in the system of ferment germs. Enteric fever 
and erysipelas are familiar examples. Simple absorption 
has sufficed to inoculate the patient, but in the majority of 
instances the skin receives more or less abrasion, and the 
germs are either implanted in the epithelium beneath or 
introduced directly into the circulation. The abrasion may 
heal kindly, but in a varying time, depending upon many 
factors; an irritation at the seat of the abrasion, accom- 
panied with darting pains, announces the onset. LTnlike 
- other diseases, the blood appears not to be a good soil for the 
development of the germs, which, however, circulate with it 
until they find the soil or tissue best adapted to them, and 
then the real havoc begins. In the dog and the man the 
three pairs of salivary glands, the parotid, submaxillary 
and sublingual, appear to furnish the required conditions, 
and to be the main seat of the lesion. The congestion of the 
nervous centers that so directly ensues is probably conse- 
quent upon changes in the structure of these glands. Every 
physician knows well how speedily severe nervous symptoms 
follow .such changes, how intimate the sympathy is between 
the glandular organs of the mouth and throat and the 
nervous centers at the base of the brain, and what violent 
hysteriform seizures often ensue in such cases. With the 
involution of the great respiratory tract of the nervous sys- 
tem come difficult respiration and its train of associated 
symptoms. At the same time it is more than probable that 
the nervous system suffers from the more direct poisoning 
caused by the presence of germs in the circulation, but not 
because they are a specific nerve poison; for when a full dis- 
section is performed, no evidence of it is found in the nerve 
centers, and this excludes the nerve poison hypothesis. 
In the McCormick case, as reported by Dr. Hammond, 
June, 1874, microscopic examination revealed disease of the 
cortical substance of the brain, disease of the medulla ob- 
longata, and disease of the spinal cord, also disease of the 
pneumogastric and hypoglossal nerves. The nerve elements 
were broken down and oil had taken their place, and this has 
been found the general direction of the disease, with slight 
modifications in different cases. Fatty degeneration of the 
nerve substance was a marked symptom. 
The question quickly arises, what best can be done to 
arrest the action of this poison? Nature does everything 
possible by arousing every emunctory to action, and, as in all 
cases of poison or morbid matter in the system, the leuco- 
cytes are called upon for their most vigorous action to re- 
lieve the patient. It is claimed that immediate suction of 
the wound has saved many patients Good authorities be- 
lieve that the virus remains localized, for a time, in the cica- 
trix, and that cutting it out even after the original wound 
has healed may serve to avert the disease. 
To diminish the production of rabies in the dog, Fleming, 
one of the most distinguished veterinary surgeons, recom- 
mended that dogs should be muzzled, except in times when 
the disease is epidemic; that they should be placed under 
good hygienic conditions, with a heavy tax upon every 
animal, and that all vagrant dogs should be killed. It is 
claimed by some, among them Fleming, that rabies has 
spontaneously originated in the dog in consequence of ex- 
posure to extremes of heat and cold, ungratifled sexual ex- 
citement, maltreatment, insufficient food, etc. Roucher 
another authority, also maintained the same idea. ' 
Opposed to this is a long array of eminent authorities who 
claim that rabies does not originate in the dog otherwise 
than by inoculation with the virus of a rabietic animal. 
In the pathologic anatomy of the disease we are also in- 
volved in a mass of contradictions. Careful microscopic ex- 
aminations of the brain and spinal cord, by medical experts 
have been attended with entirely negative resvdts. In some 
few cases there was found fatty degeneration of the nerve 
cells, notably that publi.shed by Dr. Hammond in 1874; in 
others .'dimple congestion of the vessels, but in the whole 
list there was no lesion found that was peculiar to hydro- 
phpbia. 
In reporting this condition of things, the Medical Record 
stated, May 25, 1878: "We are forced to the sad conclusion 
that, with the present means at our command, every case of 
hydrophobia is necessarily fatal." 
Dr. Hammond, in his report previously referred to, in- 
dorsed the plan suggested by Bourrel and also detailed by 
Fleming in his treatise on rabies, of having the incisor teeth 
blunted. So far as dogs treated that way are concerned, this 
was claimed to be an absolute preventive, but non-rabid 
dogs have been known to communicate the disease. It is a 
well-known fact that the germs of this poison are sometimes 
present in the saliva of dogs that are apparently healthy, and 
particularly frequent in that of the spitz, It is also known 
that the bite of a man in anger may inoculate a man whom 
he bites with poison that produces disease, if not hydro- 
phobia. Instances are on record of a woman while in anger 
nursing her infant, thereby bringing on convulsions and en- 
dangering the life of the child. 
The pathologic changes in the nerve substance are but the 
local exhibition of the general systemic poisoning. In the 
effort to throw off this poison a small amount of morbid 
matter adjacent to living structure is dissolved by the leuco- 
cytes, and is forced out of the .system by way of the natural 
emunctories. When the system is in the throes of a vital 
struggle with this morbid material, there can be no excuse 
for thrusting upon it more of the same material, even though 
it be in attenuated form. The human system, when labor- 
ing under morbid influences, needs but those elements which 
can add vigor to the vital resistance, and the fluid which 
patrols the entire body should be strengthened rather than 
further decomposed and disorganized by the addition of 
extraneous and poisonous matter. 
The Pasteur treatment is the accredited method for those 
wh9 have been bitten by a rabid.animal; but this, like the 
antitoxin treatment, is simply sending one poison after 
another m the system, and whatever the result the victim ia 
the chief sufferer. The Pasteur treatment has not proved 
uniformly successful, and in those cases where it was ap- 
parently so it is open to question whether the patients might 
not have recovered without any treatment. 
It is well known that during the first few years of the ex- 
perimental inoculations for rabies so many deaths occurred 
among the patients that Pasteur himself became alarmed at 
his own work. Since that time, from the improvement in 
the treatment, the death rate has lessened, due to the dilu- 
tion of the curative lymph. 
It is well enough, and most commendable, to discover the 
microbe which, as stated, appears "to be the veritable and 
sole factor in the malady," but facts go to show that the mi- 
crobe IS the result of the disease, except in inoculation 
Pasteur found no indication of an incubation period 
shorter than seven days, and he never claimed that he had 
discovered a cure for hydrophobia, but simply that a person 
who had been bitten by a presumably mad dog, and within a 
few days was inoculated with attenuated virus, would not 
develop hydrophobia; if a certain time had elapsed after the 
bite this preventive treatment was of no use whatever 
