CONSULTATIONS. 
587 
was this dog going mad at all ] May I, with safety, let him go at 
large 1 Destroy him, while there is the slightest chance, I will not. 
May I request your early attention to this 1 Though living in a 
sporting neighbourhood, where a pack of fox-hounds is kept, there 
is not a veterinary surgeon within less than twenty-eight miles of 
me : and, in self-defence, or, more strictly speaking, in defence of 
my cattle, dogs, and hunters, I am obliged to turn my attention to 
veterinary matters. At the same time I should be always de¬ 
lighted to pay for the services of a well-taught veterinarian, if 
established in this neighbourhood. 
I am, &c. 
Reply. 
Sir,—In the course of a long practice on the diseases of the dog, 
I have seen three who exhibited the same characteristic symptoms 
of rabies which you describe, yet who weathered the storm. All 
of them I knew to have been bitten by rabid dogs, but by different 
ones, for I had opportunities of examining them both before and 
after death. 
The dogs that were bitten were sent to me at different periods, 
under, I thought, the foolish hope of possible escape. They were 
favourites—as much as your’s can be. 
No medicine was given to them except a few doses of calomel 
and emetic tartar, when there was considerable costiveness. 
In due time some of the early symptoms of rabies plainly 
developed themselves : and one followed on the other until there 
could not be the slightest doubt that the animals were rabid. 
Scarcely one symptom was wanting to complete the picture of a 
mad dog. In somewhat more than twenty-four hours, however, 
the paroxysm began to subside, and at the expiration of the third 
or fourth day all was calm. Several years passed between the 
occurrence of these strange scenes and my having the opportunity, 
of which you may suppose that I eagerly availed myself, to trace 
their after-history. Neither of them suffered any relapse. 
If these cases, however, are calmly considered, there is nothing 
so wonderful about them. We have numerous instances in the 
biped and the quadruped, in which a sufficient quantity of animal 
or other poison has been imbibed, not merely to disarrange the 
system, but induce a train of morbid effects which are scarcelv, 
for awhile, distinguishable from the ordinary ones of that poison. 
The eruption appears to be precisely that which we had expected; 
but after a certain period every symptom disappears, and a perfect 
calm succeeds. The smallest additional portion of the virus would 
have been fatal. In tlie present case tlicro was enough sadly to 
disarrange but not absolutely to subvert the system. 
