282 
ON RABIES CANINA. 
wool. Not more than one in three who had been attacked by a 
rabid dog would be alFected. 
The human being is least of all in danger. Mr. John Hunter 
supposed that, if twenty persons were bitten, probably not more 
than one would become hydrophobous. This, however, is calcu¬ 
lating far too highly the chance of escape. We have many accounts 
of the dreadful ravages of this disease in other countries. M. 
Trolliet tells us, in his valuable Traite de la Rage,^’ that in May, 
1817, twenty-three persons were bitten by a rabid wolf, of whom 
no less than fourteen died, in defiance of all curative means. In 
1827, two persons were bitten by a rabid dog in the neighbour¬ 
hood of Bairs Pond : one of them was lost, although operated on 
by one of our most skilful surgeons. Two years before, a New¬ 
foundland dog was sent to my residence, evidently unwell, but the 
nature of the malady not suspected. There was either something 
very deceptive in the case, or my assistant was unpardonably 
careless. The animal was dismissed with a little physic. On 
the next day rabies was sufficiently developed. One person only 
was bitten, but the poor fellow became hydrophobous. 
There can be no doubt, however, that the decided majority 
escape, even if no means, or those which are inert and insufficient, 
are adopted. Hence the falsely-acquired reputation of so many 
prophylactics. 
This immunity depends on various circumstances. The bitten 
part may be covered by the clothes, and they maybe woollen. In 
passing through them, the tooth may be perfectly freed from the 
virus. Most of those who died hydrophobous were bitten in the 
hand or face. Dr. Parry relates an interesting circumstance ap¬ 
plicable to the present point. Dr. Ingenhousz was experimenting 
on the deadly power of the Ticunas poison. He had just enve¬ 
nomed the point of a knife, when it fell from his hand, and, pierc¬ 
ing the shoe and stocking, wounded his foot. He threw himself 
back in his chair, and calmly said, “ In five minutes I shall be a 
dead man.^’ The five minutes, however, having elapsed without 
any symptoms of approaching dissolution, he ventured to remove 
the knife, and wash the wound. The poison, like the vitiated sa¬ 
liva, was in a fluid form, and it had been entiiely wiped from the 
point of the knife in its passage through the shoe and stocking. 
Insatiable thirst accompanies the later stages of rabies. The 
virus may have been largely diluted with water, and rendered 
comparatively innocuous. 
There is, however, something more than this in the affair. 
The skin of the dog is loose, like that of cattle. It is sometimes 
covered with thick hair; and, except in the petted and delicate va¬ 
rieties, it is not very easily penetrated; yet almost every dog that 
