88 
ON RABIES CANINA. 
It will be imagined, then, that I am an advocate for the use of 
the caustic. Most certainly. But what caustic ? Not a liquid 
one. Not one that speedily deliquesces. For, in the first place, 
it is unmanageable ; and, what is a more important consideration, 
it may hold in solution, and not decompose the poison, and thus 
inoculate the whole of the wound. 
The caustic which I would with much confidence recom¬ 
mend is the nitrate of silver. It is perfectly manageable. Being 
sharpened to a point, it may be applied with certainty to every 
recess and sinuosity of the wound. 
The potash, and the nitric acid, will destroy the substances 
with which they come in contact; but the combination of the 
caustic and the animal fibre will be a soft or semi-fluid mass. 
In this the virus is suspended, and with this it lies upon, and 
remains in intimate contact with, the living fibre beneath. Then 
there is danger of re-inoculation; and it would seem that this 
fatal process is often accomplished. 
The eschar formed by the lunar caustic is hard, dry, and in¬ 
soluble. If the whole of the wound has been exposed to its 
action, an insoluble compound of animal fibre and the metallic 
salt is produced, in which the virus is wrapped up, and from 
which it cannot be separated. In a short time the dead matter 
sloughs off, and the virus is thrown off with it. 
Previous to applying the caustic it will sometimes be neces¬ 
sary to enlarge the wound, that every part may be fairly got at ; 
and I w'ould without hesitation amputate, if I were not fully 
assured that I could get at every part. The eschar having 
sloughed off, it will always be prudent to apply the caustic a 
second time, but rather more slightly, to destroy any part that 
may not have received the full influence of the first operation, 
or that by possibility might have been inoculated during the 
operation. 
Does any chemical combination take place ? Is the virus neu¬ 
tralised by its union with the caustic. I cannot demonstrate this ; 
but I have much reason to believe that some effect of this kind 
is produced. 
It is painful to speak of one’s-self; but I may, perhaps, here 
be permitted to say, that I have been bitten four times by dogs 
decidedly rabid. At each time I freely applied the caustic to 
the wound ; and 1 am living to the present day. I have operated 
on more than four hundred persons, all bitten by dogs, respecting 
the nature of whose disease there could be no question. No sur¬ 
geon in the metropolis has operated on one-fourth of the number. 
I have not lost a patient. One poor fellow died of fright, but not 
one became hydrophobous. To what can I so naturally attribute 
