642 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE ON CANINE MADNESS. 
the bite of a dog supposed to be mad, do you believe to have 
arisen from the bite of a dog really rabid? and of the cases really 
produced by the bite of a dog rabid, what proportion do you 
believe to have actually taken the hydrophobia?—Ever since I 
have been about the hospital, either as a pupil or a surgeon, we 
have had a great number of persons come w ho have been bitten 
by dogs supposed to be rabid: I conclude that many of those 
dog’s were not rabid, but that a considerable number must have 
been so. We have always excised the parts, or we have applied 
caustic w hen we could not excise, and 1 have never heard of any 
one of those patients having had the disease afterwards. If any 
of them had had it, we should have been sure to have heard of 
them. 
You attribute great virtue to such means?—Yes, if the ope^ 
ration be properly performed: a great deal depends upon how r it 
is done; it may be done very carelessly. The caustic may be 
applied by those w ho are not in the habit of applying it, and 
who do not use it sufficiently freely. I have seen two persons 
have the disease who had had the caustic applied, but then I 
suspect it wtiS not applied in a proper manner. Among* those 
admitted into our hospital, where it is almost always done by the 
house-surgeon, and generally done at the moment, as 1 said 
before, no single individual has ever had the disease. I may add, 
that I have talked with other surgeons of hospitals both in this 
country and abroad, and had the same account from them all. 
Have you had any reason to believe that any one of the dogs 
by which the bites were inflicted had been otherwise than mad? 
—I dare say the greater number of the dogs that had bitten 
persons brought to our hospital w ere not mad. 
Have you known that in the cases of some of those patients 
who were so bitten, the dogs have afterwards died rabid?— 
Yes, I cannot doubt it. They very frequently have sent the 
dogs to us to dissect, and we have found such appearances as 
proved them to have been rabid. 
Would it be safe almost at any time before the disease had 
appeared to apply the knife or the caustic?—There can be no 
harm from it. It must be safe at any rate: and I should apply 
it certainly at any time before the symptoms had shew n them¬ 
selves, because 1 do not know when the operation ceases to be 
useful. 
Can you suggest to the Committee any measure of precaution, 
as a measure of police, which it might be desirable to adopt 
either for the prevention of the disease, or as the means of assist¬ 
ing in its cure, by directing the public attention to the disease 
and to the remedies?—I suppose, with respect to the prevention 
