554 
HYDROPHOBIA AND ITS PREVENTION. 
had seen and read on the subject, he was fully of opinion that the 
seat of the disease was chiefly referrible to the sentient track of the 
spinal cord, and that remedial agents should be directed to that region. 
The pathology of the disease, however, was still quite obscure, 
and until this was made clearer he had no hope of benefit from the 
treatment of the disease on general principles. He took to himself 
the credit of first directing attention to the spinal cord in this affec- 
tion, for, previously to the publication of his cases in the “ Medico- 
Chirurgical Transactions,” the attention of medical men had been 
exclusively directed to the state of the trachea and the bronchial 
tubes. Respecting the prevention of hydrophobia after the inflic- 
tion of a bite by a rabid animal, he believed that the poison 
remained latent in the wound until some constitutional irritation 
brought on inflammation or irritation in the cicatrix, and then 
immediately followed the terrible constitutional symptoms of the 
disease. He could not see in what other manner the various 
periods of time in which the disease developed itself could be 
satisfactorily explained. If his view of the subject was correct, 
it would follow that extirpation of the wound, or its cicatrix, would 
be of avail at any time before the inflammation or irritation alluded 
to should come on. He knew that Mr. Youatt had laid great 
stress on the employment of lunar caustic for this purpose, but he 
(Dr. Thomson) would not trust to that alone; he would, in every 
case, pursue the treatment which in his own person had been 
adopted, that of excision and the after-application of the caustic. 
Even when the disease had fairly affected the system, he could 
conceive it possible that it might cease spontaneously from inherent 
power in the constitution ; but no treatment that he was acquainted 
with had been of any avail. He briefly related the case of a boy, 
nine years of age, who became affected with hydrophobia in con- 
sequence of being bitten by a rabid cat. In this case there was 
no intermission whatever of the symptoms ; neither did he think 
that in this disease, generally, there was any real intermission. The 
violence of the symptoms might be somewhat abated, but there 
was no intermission. In this case the sensibility of the skin was 
so great that the slightest motion of the air produced convulsions. 
Hydrocyanic acid, in large doses, was given to him, without benefit. 
Four or five hours before death, the convulsions all ceased, and 
hopes of his recovery were entertained. They suddenly, however, 
returned, and he died in an hour. He had said, that he considered 
the spinal cord chiefly at fault in this disease, and he was the more 
convinced of this from the similarity of the symptoms of hydro- 
phobia to those produced by poisoning with strychnia, in which 
that extreme sensibility of the surface, so characteristic of hydro- 
phobia, obtained to a remarkable extent. Thus the mere touching 
