340 
A CASE OP HYDROPHOBIA, 
It is necessary to remember, that we have numerous instances 
of dogs imparting the disease to human beings at a time when 
there was no reason to believe the dogs mad ; when they bit w 7 ith 
a cause, that is, on account of being vexed, or have merely 
licked an abraded or cracked portion of the skin in fondness ; 
and that sometime afterwards, perhaps even after the person so 
bitten or licked has gone rabid, the disease has appeared in the 
animal; and on this account, I think that every dog to which 
the least suspicion attaches, ought to be instantly destroyed * 1 . 
of this. While rabies is acknowledged to be produced by ino¬ 
culation alone in every other animal, I demand some proof of 
its ever being spontaneous in the dog or the cat. I ask for one 
authenticated instance of it. My experience cannot afford it. 
Of many hundred cases of rabies that have come under my cog¬ 
nizance, the inoculation w r as proved in the great majority, and 
was not impossible, so far as I could learn, in any. I ask for 
one authenticated case of heat, thirst, putrid meat, disease or 
any other cause, save inoculation, having produced rabies in the 
dog or cat. Medical men are interested, and the country is in¬ 
terested in this question. If it be propagated from dog to dog, 
we have, to a very considerable extent, the means of prevention 
in our power ; and the legislature will, ere long, assist us in limit¬ 
ing the ravages of the disease : if it be produced by other causes, 
I anxiously ask, what are they; and I fear that we must conti¬ 
nue to be exposed to the alarm and danger that now annoy us. 
I respectfully challenge discussion on this most important 
point.—W. Y. 
1 Surely this cannot be correct. I can suppose that the 
virus may remain for a long period dormant in the wound, and 
that at length, from having attracted or assimilated to itself ele¬ 
ments from the fluids that circulate around it, or from its long- 
continued presence having rendered the tissue or nervous fibril on 
which it lay more susceptible of impression, the constitution may 
become affected, and the disease be recognizable and speedily 
run its course; but that several weeks, or even months, shall 
pass on after the constitution has become affected and the secre¬ 
tions vitiated, and yet the disease shall not be cognizable by a 
single symptom, is to me perfectly new, and pregnant with alarm 
and with horror. Here, again, I call for proof. 
My reading may be comparatively limited. I am aware of 
one case, although I cannot at this moment recollect my au¬ 
thority, but it is a case which often preys upon my mind, and 
involves me in occasional unpleasantness, from the seemingly un¬ 
necessarily minute inquiries wdiich I feel myself compelled to 
