11ABIES IN thp: dog.— symptoms. 
401 
his own faeces — the wild boar, like those in the zoological me- 
nagerie, may rarely leave a particle for the keeper to sweep away ; 
but be assured that, seemingly unnatural as the habits of the dog 
occasionally are, if you ever see him deliberately devouring his 
own ordure, he is rabid*. 
So with the urine. The dog, and at particular times when he 
is more than usually salacious, may and does diligently search 
out the urining places, and may even, at the times referred to, be 
seen to lick the spot which another had just wetted : but if a 
peculiar eagerness accompanies this strange employment — if 
in the parlor, which is rarely disgraced by this evacuation, every 
corner is perseveringly examined, and with unwearied and un- 
ceasing industry licked, that dog should be carefully watched — 
there is great danger about him ; and if he should be ever ob- 
served to evacuate his own urine and immediately to turn and 
lick it, he may, without any other symptom, be pronounced to be 
decidedly rabid. I never knew any mistake about this. But 
it is time to break off. 
* I cannot help recurring to a very conclusive letter on this subject, by 
a gentleman, signing himself Chirurgus, of Doncaster, in the Lancet for 
1828-9, vol. ii, p. 652. 
He was sent for to see a dog supposed to be rabid. “ The animal was lying 
listlessly on his bed, with a dull eye, palpitations, hot breath and tongue — 
no fretfulness — he drank heartily, and appeared to be the better for it. On 
the following day he was worse, had a wild eye, and was snarlish. He died 
the third day. The stomach was found greatly distended, and emitted a 
most intolerable stench, arising from its contents, which were straw and 
excrement. The mucous lining of the stomach was redder than in its 
natural state. During the delirium of the animal he had, indeed, devoured 
his own faeces and bedding, and, indiscriminately, any substance imme- 
diately contiguous.” 
This is a tolerably satisfactory case, one would think ; but what says 
Chirurgus of Doncaster? “I have been since informed, by an intelligent 
breeder and trainer of dogs, that it is no unusual circumstance for dogs to 
eat their own dung, when afflicted by an active disease of the nervous system 
From these statemenls, it is quite clear that the fact of animals consuming 
their own excrement is neither of peculiar occurrence nor characteristic of 
hydrophobia.” Fy ! fy ! ! Chirurgus of Doncaster. 
