* ON RABIES IN THE DOG. 
27 
with by the Cornish miners ; but neither of these is growth, any 
more than the formation of crystals of common salt when the water 
that held them in solution is evaporated. These are not growth, 
but mere aggregations, — gatherings of matter together without any 
change of its nature. There is not in all the wonders of chemistry 
a single instance of assimilation, or the transmutation of one sub- 
stance into another, as we find in the organic world. Grass is 
changed into the flesh of bullocks, and beef into the flesh of man ; 
but all the labour of the alchymist could not change a single metal 
into another ; for although tin and lead are not very unlike each 
other in appearance, it would be just as hopeless to attempt changing 
the one to the other, as it would be to attempt turning brickbats 
to ingots of gold, or hailstones to diamonds. 
[To be continued.] 
ON RABIES IN THE DOG. 
By Nimrod. 
Dear Sir, — A MULTIPLICITY of avocations, added to occasional 
absence from home, have prevented my doing more than wishing 
well to The VETERINARIAN and its contributors, which I do with 
my whole heart, considering it to be one of the most interesting and 
useful periodicals of the present day — and this not merely to the 
sportsman, or the owner and lover of horses and cattle, but to the 
scientific man and the philosopher. 
Now, with what subject shall I commence? Surely, none forces 
itself more earnestly on my mind than your own admirable lec- 
tures on animal pathology, touching Rabies in the Dog, to which 
I have ventured to draw the attention of Sir Francis Burdett, pre- 
vious to his projected Bill in Parliament on this most important 
subject. It is one not only somewhat congenial with the pursuits 
of this worthy baronet, but his undertaking the difficult task of 
combatting with the source of the evils arising from the abuse of 
one of the great ends of Providence, — the services of that noble 
animal the dog — is quite in character with the man. 
But what is the result — to myself, at least — of a perusal of the 
above-named lectures ? Why, little short of a total dissipation of 
all my former views of the causes which lead to that fatal dis- 
order, the rabies canina , and vulpina, or madness in dogs and 
foxes. It is true, that my reading on this subject has been next to 
nothing. I had merely satisfied myself with believing the dog, 
living on animal food, must be among those creatures whose fluids 
have a tendency to putrefaction ; that when exposed to heat and 
