RABIES IX THE DOG.—SYMPTOMS. 
Of whatever character they are, or wherever they are found, 
they have been thought to prove that the animal has been in¬ 
fected by the rabid poison. The fluid which they contain is a 
secretion of the same poison. If the vesicle or pustule is de¬ 
stroyed by the actual cautery, all danger ceases ; but if the golden 
opportunity is lost, the poison becomes absorbed in twenty-four 
or eight-and-forty hours, and the animal inevitably perishes. 
Dr. Urban, in Hufeland’s Journal, says, that he was examin¬ 
ing some of these pustules, or tumours, in a dog that had been 
bitten a few days previously, without thinking of some chaps 
that were on his hands. At about the same distance of time 
afterwards he began to feel similar pustules under his tongue. 
He examined his mouth by the aid of a mirror, and he was 
sure of it. He freely lanced them, and applied the caustic, and 
he lived to give us an account of his danger and his escape. 
These are strange stories, and we dare not discredit them. 
These gentlemen could have no motive for palming upon us wil¬ 
ful falsehoods, yet by no human or veterinary surgeon has these 
vesicles been discovered in our country, either in man or brute. 
I have kept scores of bitten dogs purposely to ascertain the ex¬ 
istence or non-existence of these enlargements, and I have never 
seen one of them. Either the disease takes on this additional 
character in the south of Europe, or, what is far more probable, 
obstruction of some of the openings of the sublingual salivary 
ducts, and consequent inflammation and engorgement of them, 
have been mistaken for vesicular or tubercular swellings. 
The Franuliirn lAn^ua .—I have never detected the slightest 
alteration from healthy structure here, whether the fraenulum had 
been left intact, or its folds had been dissevered for the purpose of 
extracting that tendinous cord, which is termed the worm under 
the tongue. 
'The Fauces .—T proceed to tlie posterior part of the mouth— 
the pharynx—the musculo-membranous cavity, which is inter- 
j)oscd between the mouth and the gullet and larynx. It is sel¬ 
dom that we fail of finding traces of inflammation here. They 
appear in the majority of cases of ferocious madness, and they 
are never deficient after dumb madness. It is usually most in¬ 
tense either towards the palatal arch, or the larynx. Sometimes 
an inflammatory character is diffused over its whole extent, but 
occasionally it is more or less intense towards one or both of the 
terminations of the fauces, while the intermediate portion retains 
nearly its healthy hue. 
There is one circumstance of not unfrequent occurrence which 
will at once decide your opinion ;—I mean the presence of indi¬ 
gestible matter, probably small in quantity, in the ))haryngeal 
