OF A DOG SUPPOSED TO BE RABID. 97 
to be thick. He had only taken one pill since the 31st. Their 
repetition was directed. 
Sept. 3, vespere.—Slight difficulty of swallowing felt to-day. 
No pain. He was low-spirited and weak. Pulse about sixty, and 
feeble. Bowels regular. Hardly any appetite for food. 
From this time he took little or no medicine. Some coffee was 
ordered, which greatly refreshed him : he afterwards slept w r ell, 
and gradually got better in every respect. He was soon after¬ 
wards married to a young woman who had most carefully and 
kindly attended him in his illness, and left this part of the 
country. 
Two years after the occurrence of this case, I wrote to Mr. 
Webb, to inquire wffiether or not he knew any thing of the subse¬ 
quent state of the patient; and a circumstance communicated in 
Mr. Webb’s reply is worthy to be added to the above detail. 
“ I do not know,” says Mr. Webb, “ if I informed you, that 
about six weeks after the man w r as bitten, and three w r eeks after 
the wound was healed, he came to me with a vesicle, situated 
partly where the wound was excised, similar in size and shape to 
a large cow-pock vesicle, and filled with a reddish fluid. I re¬ 
commended him to apply a poultice to it, which caused it to break 
and disappear. 1 have certain information that the man is living 
and in health.” 
I have purposely detailed all the particulars of this case without 
comment. I believe I w r as the only witness of it, who enter¬ 
tained much doubt concerning its being a decided case of hydro¬ 
phobia ; and I confess my doubts concerning its nature remain. 
The dissection of the dog was too imperfect to make the evidence 
complete; and the supervention of the symptoms, on the sup¬ 
posed cause, was more rapid than it is commonly supposed to be 
in cases of rabies. The patient w r as of an irritable constitution, 
and had been, at a former period of his life, subject to Jits. But 
the symptoms were exceedingly curious, and quite unlike any 
of the ordinary symptoms of disease. 
If it may be admitted that the dog actually died in a rabid 
state, we can hardly avoid considering the patient as really the 
subject of ^hydrophobia; and his recovery, under very simple 
treatment, even from what must be looked upon as a mild degree 
of so dreadful a disorder, would be a fact of some value. Two 
circumstances appear to be constant in rabies, w hether existing 
in the dog or in the human subject,—a violent degree of nervous 
disturbance, and a disposition to local inflammations. The 
treatment in the case just described was dictated by a considera¬ 
tion of th^se circumstances; and without laying undue stress 
upon this single case, it must be allowed to illustrate the advan- 
