764 
CANINE MADNESS. 
ought to know better, or otherwise he less confident in their decisions on 
matters on which they are so ignorant ; for, owing to this opinion, proper pre- 
cautions were neglected by some of the injured parties. The chief ground, 
I understand, that led to this sage decision, was the circumstance of the dog 
not refusing water when it was offered to him ; these persons not knowing 
that in the dog there is no dread of water, though often an inability to 
swallow it. 
I did not see the dog in question before he was destroyed ; but, from a 
detail of the symptoms, I entertained little doubt of his having been in a 
rabid state. However, two days afterwards, hearing that it was reported that 
the dog was not mad, I sent to the owner’s house, and had the carcass of the 
animal dug up, and assured myself, beyond all question, by a post-mortem 
examination, that the case was one of decided madness. I then felt it my 
duty to apprise parties who had been bitten, or who had had animals bitten, 
of the real truth of the matter, in order that they might be upon their guard. 
I take it, Sir, that errors on these matters, which affect so much the comfort 
and safety of the public, should always be pointed out, whether they are 
leaning to the side of safety or otherwise. 
I am, &c. 
July 10, 1839. 
No. III. 
To the Editor , SfC. 
Sir, — Your readers will bear in mind that, about two months since, I related 
a case of rabies, together with some advice on the subject. Now, as this 
opinion was disputed at the time, I feel that, in justice to myself, and as a 
caution to the public, the melancholy sequel of the case should be related. 
In my former letter I mentioned that, among others, a child had been severely 
bitten by the dog, and that, as soon as I had examined the body of the animal, 
I made it my business to find out the friends of the child, and to assure them, 
positively and unequivocally, that the dog had been rabid, advising them, at 
the same time, to have the parts either excised or cauterized. I called a second 
time, a few days afterwards, to ascertain if my advice had been adopted, but 
found that it had not — that the surgeon in attendance, who had seen the dog 
before he was destroyed, persisted in his former conviction that it was not 
mad, and that, in consequence thereof, neither cauterization nor excision had 
been resorted to. I reiterated my former statement and advice, then feeling 
that I, at any rate, had done my duty in the matter. Accordingly I heard 
nothing more of the case until Saturday last, when I was informed that the 
child, who had been removed to a distant town, had been seized with the 
dreadful symptoms of hydrophobia, and yesterday I learned that these symp- 
toms had terminated in death. I trust this melancholy and distressing case 
(doubly distressing, inasmuch as, in all probability, the child would have been 
saved if proper measures had been resorted to) will operate in inducing par- 
ties who may read this or hear of the case, should they or their friends be 
bitten, by no means to neglect the employment of the only measures on which 
reliance can be placed. To this I w 7 ould add — and I am sure that I shall be 
borne out by nineteen surgeons out of twenty — that this treatment, viz. 
cauterization or excision, should be adopted not only in cases of certainty, 
but in all cases of doubt. For my own part, I am willing, in order to prevent 
the spread of this dreadful malady, at all times to examine the bodies of sus- 
pected animals for the poor gratuitously, as in the case which led to this un- 
fortunate consequence. By thus reducing doubt to certainty, and ascertain- 
