326 
ANIMAL PATHOLOGY. 
acknowledge the kindness with which we have, with excep- 
tions rare and far between, been met in consultation on this 
subject ; but we have now and then been encountered with cold- 
ness and ill-concealed contempt. 1 was once requested to examine 
a bitch belonging to a gentleman then and still an ornament of the 
Linnean Society. She had bitten two of his servants. He had 
consulted the then Goliath of medical literature, who told him 
that there was nothing the matter with the dog, and no neces- 
sity for punishing the servants. He, however, was a kind master, 
and washed to make assurance doubly sure, and he sent for me. 
The moment I saw her I said that she was rabid, and, in fact, 
so near the winding up'of the affair, that she would not live until 
the morning. He urged me to come down in the evening, and 
in the meantime he would summon other medical friends, and 
there should be a consultation about the matter. It so happened 
that other engagements made me a little late. As I was ushered 
into the drawing-room, I saw ten or a dozen gentlemen. One, of 
portly bulk, was warming a certain nameless posterior part of his 
frame, and saying, “ It is all nonsense that we are met about: 
there is nothing the matter with the bitch ; but a dog-doctor has 
been here this morning, and he says that she is mad. I should 
like to see this dog-doctor.” By this time I had advanced into 
the room, and, after telling him that this was not a reception to 
which the dog-doctor was accustomed, and being cheered by the 
kind reception of others, the consultation began ; and the result 
of it was, that, with the one dissentient voice, it was determined 
that she was rabid, — that the operation on the servants was ne- 
cessary, — and the parts were forthwith excised. Then came the 
talk about the quadruped. I affirmed that she would not be 
living on the noon of the following day, and prevailed on my 
antagonist to meet me there at a little later hour. 
We met, and the bitch was produced dead enough. Made wise 
from the experience of the former evening, I urged him to tell me 
what morbid lesions would satisfy him. I told him what I expected 
find, but I could not bring him at all to the point. The bitch 
was opened. I affirmed that she died rabid; — he declared that 
it was no such thing, and that the servants had been uselessly 
punished. The difficulty was, who should decide. I started off 
for my old master, Joshua Brooks, whose simple, profound, 
inestimable lectures will never be forgotten by those who be- 
longed to his school, and entreated him to come and decide a 
knotty point, the nature of which I would not tell him. He 
came. “ Mr. Youatt has not told you, I take for granted, the 
nature of the question you are to decide?” “ Not a word.” 
“ Then please to walk this way. Was this bitch rabid or not?” 
