BABIES. 
G77 
You may remember, or may have forgotten, that, several years 
ago, in a professional chat between ourselves, I suggested the 
propriety of operating by tracheotomy upon a rabid dog at the 
first indication of the disease being perceived. I gave you mv 
rationale at the time, the why and the wherefore ; you appeared 
to entertain the subject, but only observed in reply, “ It is cer- 
tainly worthy of a trial.” 
I am not aware that you or others have ever had recourse to 
the operation with this view, and therefore I feel impelled, by a 
sense of duty in the cause of humanity, to renew the subject. 
Although this monster of disease yet rages uncontrolled even 
by you or by any other man in the known world when once de- 
veloped, still you have the proud satisfaction of knowing that 
the doctrine you have promulgated has crushed the serpent while 
in its germ in almost innumerable instances among the lower 
animals, and, happily, in many a human being. I allude to 
your prompt dictum, as to the extirpation unreservedly of every 
atom of the bitten part and beyond it, and by having firmly 
added the salutary warning, that there exists no other earthly 
hope as a preventive. 
This alone is a great triumph. By its modus operandi it also 
affords some clue as to the nature of the virus; for, unlike many 
vegetable and some animal poisons, very considerable time must 
elapse before the entire system becomes charged with this deadly 
virus, imbibed at the spot of inoculation, and therefore its dread- 
ful consummation may be averted in almost every instance. 
But when this animal poison, as in every other known conta- 
gious disease, is allowed to locate itself undisturbed for a suffi- 
cient time within any sensitive tissue, it possesses an irritating 
power which, by an established law of nature, excites a like 
action of the parts in immediate contact, which, in their turn, 
become an inexhaustible source of a disease sui generis. 
Alas ! when this direful scourge has invaded the tissues of the 
brain, and the entire nervous centres, no medical man in his 
senses, of the present day, dreams of an antidote or specific 
against the disease itself, but he assiduously and humanely ex- 
erts himself in combatting only the symptoms by palliative 
remedies, abating pain and diminishing excitement until death 
relieves the sufferer by exhaustion. 
I have carefully watched the progress of this disease in all its 
stages, but more especially in horses, and my experience enables 
me to bear testimony also to your having disabused the public 
mind of a popular error — that of the brute animal being raving 
mad or insane. Such is not the case; he is conscious, although 
in the highest conceivable state of excitement. 
VOL. xvi. 4 Y 
