RABIES IN THE HORSE.— SYMPTOMS. 
585 
better, for the progress of the disease is as rapid as the first 
attack is sudden ; and possibly he will fall twice or thrice before 
he reaches his stable. 
In the great majority of cases, I would say, with very few 
exceptions, a state of excitation ensues, which is not exceeded 
by that of the dog under the most fearful form of the malady. 
There are intervals when, if he had been naturally good tem- 
pered, and had been attached to his rider or his groom, he will 
recognize his former friend, and seek his caresses, and bend on 
him one of those piteous searching looks which no one can with- 
stand. But there is danger about this. Presently succeeds the 
paroxysm, without warning and without control ; and there is no 
safety for him who had previously the completest mastery over 
the animal. 
Anecdotes . — I was once attending a rabid horse. The owner 
would not have him destroyed, under the vain hope that 1 had 
mistaken a case of phrenitis for one of rabies, and that the 
disease might yield to the profuse abstraction of blood, which I 
had been prevailed on to effect, and the purgative influence of 
the farina of the croton-nut, with which he had been abundantly 
supplied in an early stage of the malady. I insisted upon his 
being slung, so that we were protected from injury from his 
kicking or plunging. He would bend his gaze upon me as if he 
would search me through and through, and would prevail on me, 
if I could, to relieve him from some dreadful evil by which he 
was threatened. He would then press his head against my bosom, 
and keep it there a minute or more. All at once, however, the 
paroxysm would return. He did not attempt to bite me ; but had 
it not been for the sling, he would have plunged furiously about, 
and I might have found it difficult to escape. 
I had previously attended another horse, which the owner 
refused to have destroyed, and to which I only consented on con- 
dition of the animal being slung. He had been bitten in the 
near hind leg. When I approached him on that side, he 
attempted not to bite me, and he could not otherwise injure me ; 
but he was agitated and trembled, and struggled as well as he 
could ; and if 1 merely touched him with my finger, the pulsations 
were quickened full ten beats in a minute. When I went round 
to the off' side, he permitted me to pat him, and I had to 
encounter his imploring gaze, and his head was pressed against 
me — and then presently would come the paroxysm ; but it came 
on before I could scarcely touch him, when I approached him 
on the other side. 
The Ferocity of the Rabid Horse . — These mild cases, however, 
arc exceptions to a general rule— they are few and far between. 
