683 
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE 
BEFORE A COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON THE BILL TO 
PREVENT THE SPREADING OF 
CANINE MADNESS. 
[Continued from p. 645.] 
William Babington, Esq. M.D., called in and examined. 
Has the ease of hydrophobia come particularly under your 
attention?—I have had an opportunity of seeing* several in¬ 
stances of the disease; but I do not say that it has come very 
particularly under my consideration. 
Have the goodness to describe any cases you have had for 
some time past under your notice?—It has not occurred to me 
to meet very lately with any case of this disease; and though I 
should be able to go a great way back in the enumeration of 
the cases I have seen, they are not very numerous. 
Will you have the goodness to describe to the Committee 
what has been the progress of the disease from the time of the 
discovery of the person having been bitten by any animal, and 
the general effect on the patient during that time?—With 
reference to the cases which have fallen under my observation, 
I should say that the interval between the accidents from which 
the disease arose, and the occurrence of the disease itself, might 
be averaged at about six weeks or two months. The disease 
may be said to mark itself, in the first instance, by despondency 
and general indisposition, followed by very high excitement and 
extreme irritability, and general spasmodic seizures, affecting the 
respiration more especially; susceptibility to excitement of every 
kind, as, for example, to the impression arising from exposure 
to cold air, and to the sound, taste, or sight of liquids, ter¬ 
minating in convulsions, exhaustion, and death; the disease not 
in any case extending beyond the period of three or four days. 
Has there been any case within your knowledge of the disease 
arising from any other cause than that of having been bitten by 
a rabid animal?—No; the impression upon my mind is, that it 
never does arise from any other cause than the direct agency of 
its own peculiar poison. 
The Committee feel that the House, in referring the question 
of canine madness, and the means of preventing it, to their con¬ 
sideration, have called upon them to consider, as a measure of 
police justifying preventive remedies, whether the disease has 
or has not increased, in your opinion ; and from your observation, 
what is the fact ?—I have no hesitation in saying that, according 
