e i ti y 
ON RABIES, OR CANINE $ADNESS^ 
” j 
By Professor Dick, Edinburgh. 
[Pressure of collegiate and other business having prevented 
Professor Dick from sending his promised communication to 
the new series of The Veterinarian, we insert an extract 
from a valuable publication of his, not a month old, entitled 
“ Manual of Veterinary Science.” The subject is an interest- 
ing one, and the views of |the Professor clearly and con- 
sistently stated, although materially differing from those of 
many of us on the south of the Tweed.] 
Our views respecting the highly interesting disease of rabies, 
or canine madness, are not a little peculiar ; but, being the result 
of considerable observation, and leading, as we conceive, to most 
important and beneficial results, we will neither conceal nor com- 
promise our decided convictions. 
We hold, then, that rabies is essentially an inflammatory 
affection, attacking peculiarly the mucous membrane of the nose, 
and extending thence through the cribriform plate of the ethmoid 
bones to the anterior part of the brain, so giving rise to derange- 
ment of the nervous system as a necessary consequence. This 
train of symptoms, we consider, constitutes mainly, if not wholly, 
the essence of an occasional epidemic, not unlike some forms of 
influenza or epizooty ; and the bite of a rabid animal is not, to 
another so bitten, the exciting cause of the disease, but merely 
an accidental concomitant in the prevailing disorder. Also the 
disease hydrophobia, produced in man, is not the result of any 
poison introduced into his system, but merely the melancholy 
and often fatal result of panic fear, and of the disorded state of 
the imagination. Those who are acquainted with the effects of 
sympathy, and imitation, and panic, in the production of nervous 
disorders, will readily apprehend our meaning ; and if our view 
be correct, the immense importance of disabusing the public 
mind on the subject is apparent. This is a task which we hope 
one day to accomplish. But, in the mean while, considering the 
vast responsibility of promulgating these views without the ut- 
most certainty as to their truth, we shall not press them ; nay, 
we shall, to any greater extent, withhold them at present, and 
shall now do all the justice our limits allow to the elucidation of 
the prevailing, and what is generally considered the established, 
pathology and history of the complaint. 
It is generally alleged that the complaint arises spontaneously 
only in the canine and feline species of animals, including the 
