HYDROPHOBIA. 
632 
Seven days after this—the twenty-fifth after the wound—he was 
brought back to the hospital, with every symptom of what the 
surgeon recognized as confirmed rabies, and which had begun to 
be developed on the preceding night. He died on the following 
day- 
On examination after death, no lesion was found. 
M. Velpean thought that he might draw the following conse¬ 
quence from this fact: viz., that it is not absolutely necessary 
that a dog should be rabid, in order that his bite should produce 
hydrophobia. 
This dog was not rabid ; for he was not killed until the even¬ 
ing of the death of the young man. 
M. Flandrin thought that we should learn this lesson from the 
fact just narrated; viz., to cauterize every wound produced by a 
dog, although that dog is not suspected to be rabid. 
A man, said he, in the service ofM. Dupuytren, was bitten in 
the face by a butcher’s dog. There were from a dozen to fifteen 
wounds on his face, produced by the teeth of this dog. M, 
Dupuytren advised that every one of them should be deeply cau¬ 
terized with a red-hot iron. The patient refused, affirming that 
there was nothing the matter with the dog. This consideration, 
however, did not alter the opinion of the surgeon. The man 
submitted to the cautery; the wounds healed ; and the patient 
did well. 
M. Lepellitier said, that the saliva of an irritated animal con¬ 
tracted some virulent properties, and that a bite from him might, 
therefore, be dangerous. A nurse, having been bitten by her 
child, exhibited cerebral affections analogous to tfiose of hydro¬ 
phobia. A soldier, having been bitten by a comrade, died in 
convulsions seven days afterwards. 
As to the necessity of cauterization in such a case, M. Lepellitier 
reported what had lately happened in L’Hotel-Dieu. Fourteen 
persons were bitten by one dog. Five of them w^ere cauterized 
immediately with the red-hot iron, and escaped. Two had the 
muriate of ammonia applied to the wounds, and both of them 
died hydrophobous. Five had nothing done to them, and four 
of them died : of the two others nothing could be heard. 
According to M. Vassal, rabies was a specific nervous disease, that 
might be spontaneously developed in man as w^ell as in the canis 
and felis genera. A w'oman, having taken an injection of a de¬ 
coction of irritating plants, died on the seventh day afterwards, in 
convulsions resembling those of hydrophobia. By cauterization, 
in the case of a bite by a venemous animal, we change the spe¬ 
cific nature of the inflammation, and substitute simple inflam¬ 
mation for that which would have been the effect of the virus. 
