RABIES IN THE DOG. — SYMPTOMS. 
453 
ing out, and leaden coloured — constant restlessness, but per- 
fectly harmless— choaking convulsive respiration, nearly blind, 
and one eye quite gone.” 
Of another it is said, “tongue a little protruded, but highly 
discoloured ; staggering about with a kind of spasmodic motion — 
lapping its urine as soon as voided — the eyes beginning to be 
ulcerated, and the dog nearly blind.” Of another dog, belong- 
ing to Gen. Anstruther, and which I saw on the 27th May 1822, 
and that had been perfectly harmless through the whole dis- 
ease, I say on the 29th, “ the dog is this morning evidently 
blind, and his eyes are in a state of suppuration.” 
I know not of any thing precisely answering to this in the 
records of human medicine ; but Dr. Vaughan speaks of the 
singular yellow appearance of the eyes of one of his patients. 
Loss of Feeling generally . — There is also in the mad dog evi- 
dent impairment of general sensibility, and, at the moments of 
greatest desire to be mischievous, a seemingly total loss of feel- 
ing. I have repeatedly had dogs brought to me in which the 
greater part and even the whole of the incisor and canine teeth 
have been torn out, in vain attempts to obtain their liberty. 
I had not been long engaged in experiments on the power of 
different drugs, either as preventives or cures of rabies, without 
finding that it was necessary for me to get my subjects bitten by 
rabid dogs. I might inoculate a dozen dogs with the virus 
taken from the living dog in the worst state of rabies. Many 
minutes, many seconds occasionally, could not elapse in the 
transfer of the virus ; but the disease often did not appear in 
one-third of those whom I had inoculated. I shall refer to this 
hereafter. In order to obtain a few cases in which I might 
trace and experiment on the disease from its earliest period, 
I was compelled to get the poor animals bitten. In two or 
three instances I was compelled to half kill, and in one case 
absolutely to destroy, the rabid dog before he would quit his 
hold. You may suppose that I did not like this mode of pro- 
ceeding, and soon confined myself to the cases that came before 
me in the ordinary course of practice. 
I have spoken of the pain in the bitten part as an early symp- 
tom of rabies ; but in scratching or gnawing the part, the animal 
occasionally abandons himself to such an ungovernable state of 
rage, as to become utterly insensible to external impressions. In 
one case a dog set to work, and gnawed and tore the flesh 
completely away from the bones of his leg and foot. In another, 
the penis either having been in some strange way inoculated, 
or giving some offence, he fairly demolished it to the very base, 
crushing the os penis into several pieces. 
vol. x. 3 n 
