AND REMARKS ON THAT DISEASE. 
337 
who was bitten the second, became hydrophobic and died. The 
other, at exactly the same time, experienced the same premoni¬ 
tory symptoms as her sister, heaviness, and general indisposition; 
but they all went off. We know that, in persons who have been 
exposed to the contagion of typhus fever and plague, a very 
slight attack sometimes takes place; so slight and short, that 
doubts might be entertained as to the nature of the disease. I had 
a friend who passed through a pestilential street in Constantino¬ 
ple, and afterwards visited a friend who was in perfect health, 
and in a part not exposed to danger. In a short time, he felt ill 
for a certain number of hours, but was well again the next day ; 
his friend, however, became equally ill, grew worse, and died. 
In inoculating the vaccine or small-pox virus, we sometimes see a 
very slight and imperfect form of either disease; gonorrhoea also 
is, frequently, after exposure to its cause, most slight and tem¬ 
porary 3 . 
The duration of the disease, when distinctly formed, generally 
varies from rather less than twenty-four hours, to six or seven 
days 1 2 . I have had two patients with it, both little girls, and each 
died in less than twenty-four hours: the present patient died in 
rather less than six-and-thirty. The difference does not depend 
upon age, because two American cases are recorded, the one of 
a person under four, the other of a person seventy-three years old, 
who each lived six or seven days. The greater number, however, 
die on the second, third, or, at the latest, the fourth day. The 
1 I am enabled to confirm this to its fullest extent. In 
i 
seven or eight instances I have witnessed the evident early 
symptoms of rabies: the dog has been irritable, the eyes have 
been brilliant and fierce, spasms have stolen over the face, the 
bark has been changed, the lower jaw has been a little dependent, 
but the disease has “gone off/ 5 sometimes by bleeding and phy¬ 
sicking, sometimes without any medical treatment. I inocu¬ 
lated a dog in January with the rabid virus. Seven w T eeks after¬ 
wards, I was certain, from the symptoms that he exhibited, 
that he was becoming rabid. I inoculated another dog from 
him; and then purposely left him to his fate. All gradually went 
off in two or three days, except the peculiar indecision of motion. 
The dog was continually staggering and falling about—he often 
made two or three ineffectual efforts to seize his food before he 
could accomplish his object: chorea soon combined with this, 
and the dog died, at the expiration of a fortnight, a perfect skele¬ 
ton. 1 he medulla oblongata was evidently softened.—W. V. 
2 The duration of the disease in the dog is from four to six 
days.—W. Y. 
