10 
ON RABIES CANINA. 
for two hours. He was gradually sinking, and he was found in 
the morning nearly slipped down, and his head resting on the 
ground, so that he must have died without a struggle. 
Another dog afflicted with rabies was brought on the following 
day. Mr. Mayo again kindly attended; and, having observed 
evident injection of the medulla oblongata in the last case, he 
recommended severe cauterization as close to the poll as possible. 
Three deep longitudinal furrows were burned with the common 
firing iron. The dog seemed to suffer much less than we could 
have supposed possible; and the disease pursued its course, nei¬ 
ther aggravated nor mitigated by the experiment. 
Of the effect of mercury in eveiy form numerous trials were 
made, but in no case with decided benefit, notwithstanding Dr. 
James’s unqualified assurance of its power to arrest the disease. 
Opium, ammonia, cantharides, and various other drugs, were 
successively put to the test, and failed; and it is a lamentable 
conclusion, that, with the veterinary as well as the human prac¬ 
titioner, this disease remains the opprobrium of his art. 
Perhaps these experiments have not always been pursued in a 
sufficiently definite and scientific order, and I may not have 
availed myself of many opportunities to multiply them; but it will be 
recollected, that I never had a right to expose others to a danger 
from which I shrunk myself, and that I might certainly be per¬ 
mitted to calculate how far my own safety and life might be com¬ 
promised. For the last eighteen months we have seen compara¬ 
tively little of this disease, but it will break out again, and annoy 
and devastate. I should, then, feel honoured if human or vete¬ 
rinary practitioners would kindly send to my dissecting room 
quadrupeds labouring under rabies, or destroyed by it, that we 
may experiment on, or examine them together. I would willingly 
take my full share, or, perhaps, the whole of the danger, because 
from habit I should best know how to guard against it; and if 
one or two of those who are so well able to guide the researches 
of the comparatively uninstructed veterinarian, and to whom we 
already owe so much, would favour me with permission to send to 
them when any case of rabies occurs in my own practice, I should 
feel exceedingly grateful, and both veterinary and human practice 
might probably be benefitted. 
