THE IMPROPRIETY OF MUZZLING DOGS. 701 
be as free as possible. To deprive him, then, oi this faculty 
is both unnatural and cruel; and, what is still more to the point, 
a most, likely means of producing disease. Long continued 
irritation is amongst the most prominent causes of rabies, that 
is, when rabies is generated spontaneously. The quietest dogs 
may be made savage by keeping them continually tied up ; and 
the use of the muzzle alone will, in most cases, make them 
snappish and ill-tempered. Nor is this to be wondered at, 
when we consider the excitement and annoyance which they 
suffer under its constraint. What, then, can be more likely to 
produce “disease of the nervous system” than such treatment? 
If I were consulted by some one anxious to experiment on the 
most likely plan for the generation of spontaneous rabies in the 
dog, my advice would be brief and emphatic, in two words — 
“ muzzle him !” 
It has been asserted, and indeed it is insisted on as rather a 
strong point by some who object to the mayor’s order, that it 
would be just as reasonable to muzzle dogs in December as in 
May. But the fact is — and it is of the utmost importance 
that this fact should be as extensively known as possible — 
there is no reason to suppose that dogs are more subject to 
rabies in hot weather than in cold. The thermometer has 
nothing at all to do with the matter. The circumstance of the 
disease being unknown in the hottest climate ought, long ago, 
to have disproved this fallacy. And yet it is remarkable with 
how much tenacity people cling to it; and it is curious to 
observe with what timidity and distrust many intelligent indi- 
viduals regard even their own canine favourites during the 
so-called dog-days. 
The dog-days! In those little words lie nearlv all the mis- 
chief. I am satisfied that if the phrase “ dog-days” could be 
expunged from the calendar, we should hear much less of 
canine madness than we now do. Even in man it would be 
more rare; for it must be borne in mind, that even hydro- 
phobia is sometimes spontaneous, and may occasionally be re- 
ferred to extreme nervous irritation, arising from terror and 
apprehension. I find, by reference to notes taken at the 
veterinary college some ten years ago, of the lectures of Pro- 
fessor Sewell — a gentleman, who I may remark, has had more 
extensive opportunities of becoming acquainted with this dis- 
ease in man, and the lower animals as well, than perhaps any 
other individual living — that, in several cases which had come 
under his observation, the dogs whose bites were supposed to 
have produced hydrophobia had never manifested any symp- 
toms of rabies whatever, or, if any, such as yielded readily to 
treatment. And he further stated, that in no instance had he 
