ON RABIES. 
202 
up with all four legs; an incessant licking, nibbling, or scratch- 
ing of some part of themselves. 
In many dogs, however, not one of these symptoms may occur: 
the dog may retire sullen, morose, and ill-tempered to his bed 
or kennel ; he may snap and fly at every strange object that 
comes near him ; and, although it has been observed by Mr. 
Youatt and others, that previous temper has something to do 
with this disposition to bite, dogs remarkable for their previous 
inoffensive good nature are often, when rabid, fractious and feroci- 
ous to the highest degree. There is occasionally seen, early in the 
disease, an objection to food and to water ; but I never saw any 
thing amounting to a dread of the latter in the dog. It has 
always struck me as an exceedingly singular circumstance, that 
the rabid dog should communicate the disease to the human 
subject characterized by a symptom which that malady never 
exhibits in himself. However, from the perusal of various cases 
on record of what is usually termed hydrophobia in man, the 
dread of swallowing fluids, rather than the mere sight of them, 
appears to predominate ; the patient, after repeated and forcible 
entreaties to take liquids, and from time to time pitifully begging 
hard to be excused, at length grasps the cup with both hands, 
convulsively conveys it to his mouth, and swallows it to the 
dregs. I find this opinion is not exclusively my own, and I may, 
perhaps, be allowed to adduce the following extract : “ The dread 
of water, which is said, though erroneously, to be peculiar to 
hydrophobic patients, appears to depend upon the morbid ex- 
citement of the nerves of the pharynx and larynx, giving rise, at 
each attempt to swallow, to the most violent contractions of those 
parts, and sympathetically of the lower part of the oesophagus 
and cardiac extremity of the stomach ; thereby producing a 
distressing sense of suffocation, and consequent convulsive 
action of the whole system. That the dread expressed is of the 
act of swallowing, and not of the water, is proved by the fact, 
that the sight or noise of any liquid with which the idea of 
deglutition is associated, is sufficient, in many cases, to excite a 
paroxysm, whereas the rattling of the urine produces not the 
slightest uneasiness. Again, some patients will carry a cup of 
water to the lips with tolerable composure ; but as soon as the 
muscles of deglutition are called into action by an attempt to 
drink, the whole system is threatened with convulsions, and the 
resolution fails.” 
After seeing several cases, observation becomes associated with 
a particular feature in the rabid dog, by no means easily described, 
but which is not seen in any other case : it consists of a sharp, 
lively, fierce countenance, mingled with an expression of serious 
