582 
ANIMAL PATHOLOGY. 
over the ground, or lie dashes round the room — he runs against 
every thing in his way, he turns about, and barks and snaps at 
it — he takes some kind of circular course, until at length he is 
exhausted, and he falls. Sometimes the limbs are stretched 
out with tetanic rigidity, at other times they are moving with the 
utmost velocity, the head dashed again and again on the ground 
with frightful force — the eyes rolling in their sockets — the teeth 
gnashing together — the foam thrown from the mouth in every 
direction — and, all this while, the dog is utterly insensible. This 
continues a quarter of an hour, half an hour, or during several 
successive hours, until at length, perfectly exhausted, the 
spasms cease, and he lies quiet or asleep for awhile, and then 
slowly regains his consciousness, or awakes only to experience a 
renewed epileptic attack, or awakes not at all. This is the epi- 
lepsy to which the dog, from his superior intellectual develop- 
ment, or general irritability, is subject to a greater degree than 
any other domesticated animal ; and they who know nothing 
about the matter — who mistake loss of sensation and conscious- 
ness for increased mental excitement, cry out that the dog is 
mad ; and they follow him with every weapon of offence, and 
destroy him if they possibly can, or abandon themselves to un- 
founded but most distressing terror, if perchance they have been 
bitten by him during the fit. 
The Difference between these two Affections . — Now, there is 
nothing in this that ought to be for one moment confounded 
with rabies. Epilepsy and rabies are as plainly distinct as any 
two cerebral affections can possibly be. The one is a perversion, 
the other a suspension of intellectual power. The one is an un- 
conscious abandonment of muscular action to irresistible in- 
stinctive influence : there is method in the madness of the 
other, and the mind is actively employed in accomplishing its 
perverted, fearful object. I cannot do better than quote the 
language of the first scientific observer of this disease : — “ There 
is,” says Mr. Blaine, “ no rabid symptom whatever that at all 
resembles a fit, whether in the irritable or in the dumb variety. 
An epileptic fit is sudden ; it completely bewilders the dog, and, 
after a determinate period, leaves him perfectly sensible, and not 
at all irritable. In rabies there is no fit, no loss of recollection, 
no tumbling about wildly in convulsion ; neither is there any 
marked break in the natural irritability attendant on rabies. If 
a dog in an epileptic fit should be so convulsed as to attempt to 
bite, it is evidently done without design — his attack is spas- 
modic — he snaps at any thing, and it is quite as likely to be 
himself as any thing beside. The irritability and mischievous 
attempts of the rabid dog have always method with them, and 
