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523 
RABIES IN A MARE. 
[The following 1 account was copied from the Limerick Chronicle.] 
EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF HYDROPHOBIA. 
A fin e bay saddle-mare, belonging to a gentleman of this city, 
died of this shocking malady on Wednesday, in Dublin. She 
had been out as usual the day before, exercising in the Cobourg 
gardens, and there first evinced symptoms of sulk, and attempt 
to lie down, when the groom immediately rode her home. In 
the stall she appeared more uneasy still, tottering from side to 
side, and at last fell, but recovered herself, biting and snapping 
at every object. Mr. Watts, the eminent veterinary surgeon, 
was sent for promptly, and, on seeing her, pronounced at once 
that she had been bitten by a mad dog, and could not survive 
more than a day. Her mouth was then tied up to prevent the 
animal tearing herself, and doing injury to all about her. The 
mare, during the night, struggled under the paroxysms of the 
disease to release herself, and became so furious that she dashed 
against the stable walls, and broke part of the timber work ; 
foaming at the mouth, and cutting herself about the head and 
eyes by plunging against the enclosure in which she stood. 
Death, at last, closed the poor creature’s sufferings. The mare 
had evinced a slight lameness in one foot, but no sign of a cut 
or bite there. 
[The gentleman from whom the Editor received this com- 
munication accompanied it by certain queries, of considerable 
importance. Possibly Mr. Watts might be induced kindly to 
give a short answer to them. That answer would, with more 
propriety, come from him than from a stranger. It is, at all 
events, a most interesting subject. 
1. Was it from the general symptoms that Mr. Watts at once 
pronounced that the mare had been bitten by a mad dog ? 
2. Might not all the symptoms that were exhibited arise 
from simple or idiopathic inflammation of the brain or its 
membranes ? 
3. Does he consider all cases where such symptoms are ex- 
hibited as designating rabies or hydrophobia? 
4. Does he consider that these symptoms cannot arise from 
other causes than the bite of a mad dog; and if so, why does 
he come to that conclusion ? 
