ON RABIES CANINA. 
283 
is inoculated with the rabid poison is lost. There ife a predisposi¬ 
tion to be affected which does not exist in other animals. There 
is an affinity between the virus and the tissue with which it comes 
in contact, or a facility for the development and growth of the 
virus. « 
An animal or a human being is bitten by a rabid dog. A cer¬ 
tain portion of the poison is received into the wound: it produces 
no immediate irritation; there is nothing to indicate its presence. 
Some old writers, indeed, recommend us to place the fresh leaves 
of rue on the wound. If they retain their colour, it is not enve¬ 
nomed. If they change to a violet colour, the rabid poison has 
been introduced. They likewise tell us to rub a bit of bread in the 
blood or fluid discharged from the wound. If there be no danger, 
a dog will readily eat of it; if it be contaminated with the virus, 
he will refuse it, with howling. 
These fooleries are now despised. There is nothing to indicate 
the presence of the virus. The wound heals, as would another 
wound, according to its situation, magnitude, laceration, and the 
constitution of the patient. Days, and weeks, and months pass, 
and not the slightest circumstance occurs to indicate impending 
danger. 
What then is this virus? It has never been analysed. That 
would be a process difficult to accomplish. It is not diffused 
through the air, nor communicated by the breath, nor by any efflu¬ 
via, nor even by actual contact, if the skin be sound. It must be 
received into a wound; or it must come in contact with some tissue 
or nervous fibril; and there it lies domiant for a considerable but 
uncertain period, and longer in some animals than in others. 
It remains perfectly undecomposed. The absorbents are ac¬ 
tively-at work in removing every thing around. The capillary ves¬ 
sels are depositing fresh matter, but it seems to remain the same. 
Whatever else is useless, or would be injurious, is taken up, and 
the tissue or the fibril on which the vims rests is modified or 
changed; but this extraneous and fatal body bids defiance to all 
the powers of nature. 
It enters not into the circulation, or it would necessarily under¬ 
go some modification in its passage through the innumerable mi¬ 
nute vessels and glandular bodies which are scattered through the 
frame. It would excite some morbid action; or if it were not thus 
employed, or in the purposes of renovation or nutrition, it would be 
speedily ejected. 
It lies for an uncertain period donnant; but at length, from its 
constant presence as a foreign body, it may have rendered the tissue 
or nervous fibril more irritable and susceptible of impression; or it 
may have attracted and assimilated to itself elements from the 
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