AND REMARKS ON THAT DISEASE. 
339 
spurious. Dr. Parry thinks the shortest well-recorded period is 
twenty-three days; and I believe it rarely extends to more than 
nine months. The same periods have been observed in the case 
of dogs. When Lord FitzwillianTs hounds were bitten, the in¬ 
tervals varied from six weeks to six months 1 . In spurious cases 
of the disease from mere fear, the interval is frequently very 
short. In that mentioned by Celius Aurelianus, the woman be¬ 
came hydrophobic only three days after biting her threads. 
Happily, most persons that are bitten escape. John Hunter 
mentions the circumstance of twenty-one persons having been 
bitten, and yet one only caught the disease, although no cautions 
were taken to prevent it. Dr. Vaughan, the father, I believe, 
of Sir Henry Halford, mentions an instance of thirty-one persons 
having been bitten, of whom only one caught the disease, although 
some did nothing, and the rest may be well said to have done no 
more, as a part of them merely took the “ Ormskirk medicine,” 
and the rest a dip in the sea. Much depends upon the part which 
is bitten; for if the bite be inflicted upon a naked part, such as 
the face or hand, the disease is infinitely more likely to occur 
than if inflicted through the clothes, which, of course, wipe the 
teeth in their passage to the body. Dr. Parry mentions several 
sheep and dogs bitten, not one amongst the former of which took 
it, and of the latter only two, one of which two, I may mention, 
was bitten just before, and the other just after all the sheep 2 . 
I believe that sheep will take the disease; I have myself seen it 
in a cow which was bitten by a dog, but I do not know 7 that it 
originates, de novo , in any but an animal of the dog or cat kind. 
In these, it and its poison will certainly form without communi¬ 
cation with an individual already labouring under the disease 3 . 
1 This account is very correct. I have never seen a case in 
which the disease occurred in the dog in less than seventeen days 
after the bite. I have known the time to be protracted to the 
expiration of the seventh month. I should take the average 
time to be five or six weeks.—W. Y. 
“ The virus does not appear to have the same effect on all 
animals. Almost every dog that is bitten by one that is rabid 
becomes rabid. The majority of horses inoculated w 7 ith the virus 
perish. Cattle have more chance. The skin is loose, and less 
easily penetrated. A full half of those that were seized by a mad 
dog would escape. With sheep the bite is even less dangerous. 
1 he tooth has, perhaps, been cleaned in its passage through the 
wool. Not more than one in three that had been attacked by a 
rabid dog would be affected.’ 7 — Veterinarian, vol. i, p. 281. 
3 Indeed! I respectfully demand of Dr. Elliotson the proof 
