614 
OBSERVATIONS ON 
diluted solution of the chloride of lime, the practitioner will not 
fear to encounter the worst cases of fistula. 
What shall we say of our Italian friend, M. Capello? Why, 
that the subject of which he treats is one of fearful importance, 
and deserves most attentive consideration. It contains, if his 
opinions are founded on fact, the bane, and its most imperfect 
antidote, of our connexion with the faithful and reasoning dog. 
If rabies has or can have a spontaneous origin in him,—if it can 
arise from causes, the nature of which no pathologist has yet 
determined, and there is nothing to warn us of the approach of 
danger (for if there is any fact in the history of the dog uncon¬ 
trovertible, it is this, that he is capable of communicating the 
disease before there is a symptom by which that disease can be re¬ 
cognized by the common observer), and if the malady which he 
communicates has hitherto bid defiance to medical skill, it be¬ 
comes a question of no very difficult solution, whether, deaf to 
every plea for mercy, the companion of many of our pleasures, 
the guardian of our properties and our lives, our quadruped 
friend, should not be at once condemned, devoted, and hunted 
from among us, until the whole race is extirpated. 
We will not enter into the question of spontaneous rabies here ; 
it will soon come before us in the course of our periodical tui¬ 
tion, and our sentiments will be fully stated in this Journal; but 
we call upon our readers to think of it, and to compare it with 
the facts which they have observed, or which may be brought 
under their notice. 
As to the antidote, that “ the disease cannot be commuicated 
after the first degree,” or that the animal in whom rabies.has been 
produced by inoculation can spread it no farther, and that, with the 
exception of more or less temporary pain, the bite is harmless, it 
would be, indeed, a glorious thing if this could be proved. It is a 
long list of cases which M. Capello gives, and they deserve at¬ 
tentive consideration. Is there, or is there not, a fallacy run¬ 
ning through the whole ? Is, or is not, that taken for granted 
which can never be proved, or which, in fact, does not exist ? 
Is little more established, than that there is, fortunately for us, a 
want of predisposition in man to be affected by the virus ? 
Is any thing more done than to place on firmer ground the 
consolatory fact, that, if a certain number of persons were bitten 
by a rabid dog, the decided majority would escape future evil ? 
We should be happy if we could enlist some of our brethren in 
the elucidation of these points. 
For ourselves, we ardently wish that events which have oc¬ 
curred since the translation of M. Capello’s memoir was sent 
to the printer had never had existence, for we should have had one 
