RABIES IN THE DOG.— SYMPTOMS. 
391 
this subject — common between both of our professions, and a 
subject coming so home to our feelings — the early symptoms of 
rabies in that animal from whom, almost alone, we are in danger, 
there is occasionally very much and fearful doubt. 
I will relate two anecdotes more illustrative of this, and then 
proceed. If I am personally connected with them all, you will, 
at least, do me the justice to say, that I have not concealed my 
own blunders. A plain didactic statement of facts may make 
little impression, and may soon be forgotten : these anecdotes 
may be recollected to useful purpose for many a year to come. 
Anecdotes resumed . — About five years ago I was requested to 
go into a northern county, and see what was the matter in a 
kennel of hounds, several of which had died within a few days. 
The following were the leading symptoms: — The muzzle was 
hot, the countenance anxious, the appetite lost, a very consider- 
able thirst, obstinate constipation of the bowels, and a peculiar 
tucked up belly, with slight yellowness of the skin. The dogs 
lay for several hours, at first, listless and melancholy, but not ill- 
tempered, except that they would snap at any of their companions 
who disturbed them, and in this way several got slightly bitten. 
To this succeeded an unusual state of restlessness, accompanied 
by rapid and, at length, utter prostration of strength ; with a 
laboured and grating kind of breathing : the dog died about the 
third day. 
The veterinary surgeon and a medical gentleman had been con- 
sulted. The former had some latent suspicion of the true state 
of the case ; the latter said that it was fever, with a great deal of 
gastric and intestinal irritation. He was positive about this. 
The huntsman, who was a superior kind of man, likewise 
suspected the right cause, but was far from being sure of it, and 
had begun immediately to separate every dog that shewed the 
least symptom of illness. 
I arrived, and had scarcely entered the kennel when I observed 
one of the sick dogs lapping the urine which he had just voided. 
The case was consequently plain enough, and there was not the 
slightest merit in my at once setting the question at rest, by de- 
ciding that it was one of those deceptive forms of rabies that are 
occasionally seen. We divided the whole pack into couples, and 
put each couple into a place by itself, so that, although we could 
not possibly tell what dogs had been endangered, we might limit 
the after-spreading of the disease. One or two sickened, and 
were immediately destroyed a few days afterwards. Five or six 
weeks after that, as we had suspected, some others became ill — 
they had been inoculated by their companions. They were de- 
stroyed, and the plague entirely ceased. We could never dis- 
