REMOVAL OF THE COFFIN-BONE. 601 
cause of rabies. There are a greater number of male dogs at 
Tivoli than of females. The bitches, when they are at heat, are 
usually shut up, that they may breed with some selected male; 
the other dogs, led by instinct, wander about the houses in which 
the females are confined. In proportion as the gratification of 
the natural desire becomes more difficult it increases in vio¬ 
lence, and it is easy to conceive of the sufferings of the animal, 
and the constitutional injury inflicted, when these desires are not 
gratified at all.” 
The particular structure of the sexual organs in the genus 
cams strengthen, according to the author, the opinion that this 
may be the exciting cause of rabies. “ They have no vesiculce 
seminales, so that the semen cannot be secreted without copula¬ 
tion; and there is, besides, in the canine race, a mechanism which 
prolongs the act of copulation. In other animals, on the con- 
trary, provided with vesiculce seminales ,there is a kind of reservoir 
for the semen, in which it can not only be absorbed, but from 
which it can be occasionally ejected without copulation. The 
constant superabundant semen in the spermatic vessels of the 
dog, and the state of venereal orgasm in which he so frequently 
or almost constantly is, must produce their effect on his whole 
constitution. 
“ In Egypt, and in other Mahometan countries, rabies is un¬ 
known, on account of the facilities which the canine race there 
experience for the gratification of their venereal desires. Some 
celebrated authors assert that castrated dogs are rarely affected 
with rabies.” 
In a second memoir, M. Capello endeavours to shew that the 
opinions of several authors are in accordance with his, that rabies 
cannot be communicated to a third individual. 
NECROSIS, AND REMOVAL OF THE COFFIN BONE 
(OS PEDIS). 
By M. Garcjn, V. Hieres . 
There is no record in the history of veterinary medicine of 
the removal of the os pedis from a monodactyle, and of the cure 
being so complete that the animal was as serviceable as before. 
The relation of a fact of this kind will be interesting, not only in 
a pathological, but a physiological point of view—the hoof, al¬ 
though deprived of connexion with the podophyllous tissue (the 
sensible laminae), yet not only adhering to the coronary sub¬ 
stance, but continuing to grow. 
