532 EXCISION OF THE BITTEN PARTS 
It is surely justifiable to operate again upon the bitten parts—it 
is not only justifiable, but it is a point of duty that should not be 
neglected. The disease does occasionally spontaneously yield. 
The most probable explanation of this is, that the virus is ex¬ 
hausted. Let, then, the chance be taken of artificially exhaust¬ 
ing it—of removing that tissue on which a portion of it may 
still remain not yet matured or prepared for action. Before the 
full development of the malady—before the full constitutional 
affection, this would not only be justifiable, but praiseworthy. 
That is a strong case referred to by Dr. Bardsley, the wound 
was excised thirty-one days after the bite, and after the hydro- 
phobic symptoms had appeared, and the marHs life was saved.^^ 
It is related in the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions of Alten- 
burg (Sept. 1821), that a man was bitten by a rabid wolf. The 
part was excised, and he appeared for awhile to be doing well; 
but, all at once, symptoms of hydrophobia came on, and were too 
plain to be mistaken. The wound which had been kept open was 
examined, and some fungous granulations seemed to be sprouting 
from its bottom. The caustic was applied ; they were removed ; 
the nervous irritability subsided; and the patient did well. 
Trolliet says that several persons were bitten by a rabid wolf, 
and some of them died. The cicatrix in the arm of one man 
became inflamed, and gave him much pain. The caustic was 
freely applied, and no hydrophobic symptoms appeared. 
In May 1827, a bolder experiment was made at Guy’s Hospital. 
The patient had been bitten severely in the hand seven weeks 
before. No application of caustic or knife was made, and the 
parts were healed. Rabies had ensued, and the patient laboured 
under the disease to its full extent. The disease had been deve¬ 
loped thirty hours; the hydrophobia existed in the highest 
degree, and the frame was agitated with the most dreadful 
spasms.” They who advised, in such a case, amputation of the 
arm, were little or not at all deserving of censure, although the 
operation seemed to increase the duration and the violence of the 
spasms, ybr case was otherwise desperate: but the surgeon, 
who in the very early stage of the disease, and during the pre¬ 
monitory symptoms, if they may be so called, proposes and effects 
