IN AN EARLY STAGE OF HYDROPHOBIA. 531 
wounded part could not be detected, and he was not operated 
* upon. The disease approached, it established itself. There was 
the perversion of temper; the suspicious scowl; the eager watch¬ 
ing of imaginary objects ; the darting at some phantom of the 
imagination; the depraved appetite, and the characteristic howl. 
The malady pursued its regular course during more than four 
and twenty hours, and then came a gradual calm ;—the dog 
quieted down to his usual appearance and habits—he became 
well! 
Then what became of the pleasing theory in which the veteri¬ 
nary surgeon had indulged ? It also disappeared, yet not leaving 
no reek behind’’—leaving at first a somewhat confused mass 
of speculation and doubt, but which gradually formed itself 
into a still more satisfactory object of contemplation. Another, 
and another case succeeded. Once, in a hundred times or more, 
the constitutional affection admitted not of a doubt; every cha¬ 
racteristic symptom assumed its proper situation in the line of 
march, and the whole was apparently hastening to its usual 
fatal termination: but presently there was a pause—the symptoms 
remitted ; they one after the other disappeared ; and the patient 
was himself again. 
What was the probable conclusion from this—if a conclusion was 
yet justifiable? That a minute portion only of the virus having 
been originally deposited in the wound, or being roused to 
action before it had assimilated to itself sufficient other matter; 
or the part on which it lay, or the constitution generally, not 
being disposed to be acted upon by it, an imperfect disease 
alone was set up, and ran its course without affecting life. When 
the absorption of the virus commences, is it rapidly completed ? 
or may not the slowness of the process be traced in the gradual 
development of the different symptom’s ? With the suspected 
dog under his frequent observation, the veterinary surgeon is 
usually aware of the approach of the disease a day or two before 
its unequivocal symptoms are manifested. Either a greater 
supply of morbific influence is necessary to the completion of 
the case, or it is only slowly that the system yields to the power 
of the virus. 
