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ANALYSIS OF CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
As to the cauterisation with the red-hot iron, which should 
always be resorted to, whenever bitten by a suspected dog, 
it is not half so painful as is supposed — the author speaks 
from experience. 
Though the virus remains often harmless when the wounds 
are left to themselves ; although the hemorrhage, the com- 
pression, washing, cauterising, &c., considerably lessen the 
danger of the inoculation, it sometimes happens notwith- 
standing that the malady declares itself after a certain time. 
We then have another order of errors and exaggerations. 
In fact, is the malady as painful, the symptoms as frightful, 
as is generally imagined by the public ? Certainly not. 
Above all, if the symptoms are not aggravated by the cares 
of nursing, or rather provocations, however well meant. 
Left to himself the patient enjoys long intervals of calm; 
moreover, the paroxysms which occur from time to time have 
a great analogy with those of epilepsy and hysteria without 
either their duration or violence. These paroxysms are the 
more frequent and violent in proportion as the patient is 
tormented by persons, who wdth the laudable intention of 
ministering to his comforts, make him talk, and above all, 
induce him to take food, drink, or calming potions, & c., 
against which there is frequently a very strong aversion on 
the part of the patient, on account of the noise made in 
pouring them into the glass, which suffices sometimes to pro- 
voke a paroxysm. In men affected with rabies, contrary to 
the common notion, the disposition to bite is very rare. 
By removing all causes of excitement, only speaking to 
answer questions, and giving nothing but what the patients 
ask for, in a word, leaving them in the most perfect calm, we 
have then rabies in the normal state, by far less terrible and 
convulsive than when artificially provoked, which we com- 
monly observe under these conditions. Rabies is not more 
painful than many other maladies, as, for instance, strangu- 
lated hernia, volvulus, tetanus, &c. 
But, again, is the malady absolutely incurable ? are those 
who are attacked irrecoverably condemned to die in three or 
four days? No, no! the author says. Rabies is not infal- 
libly a mortal malady, and those attacked by it should not 
give themselves up to despair, which in itself may cause 
death; of this there are some deplorable instances. This 
assertion is not founded on a theory scientifically elaborated, 
but on facts, some of which have been published in a memoir 
which obtained the prize of the Society of Medicine of the 
department of the North. 
In order to decide some points relative to rabies it was 
