2 
ANIMAL PATHOLOGY. 
occasionally express some dissatisfaction at the conclusion which 
you draw. He has never had opportunity to study or perhaps 
to witness the group of lesions which, often presented to you, 
many of them unsatisfactory alone, but continually associated 
together, force conviction on your mind. 
You will not have so much to struggle with as your predeces¬ 
sors had fifteen or twenty years ago. When you have shewn to 
the surgeon standing by the peculiar appearance of the tongue, 
and of the larynx, and of the pleural membrane, and of the sto¬ 
mach, you will not be mortified, half insulted, by his addressing 
you, Well, sir, and what of all this?—There is a certain degree 
of glossitis, laryngitis to an intenser degree, an affection of the se¬ 
rous membrane which I have seen a hundred times, and a species 
of gastritis which, perhaps, I have not seen so often, but in 
which I do not recognize any thing very extraordinary. I see all 
these lesions, but not one of them was sufficient to produce 
death. Where are the specific lesions of Rabies ?” In the case of the 
veterinarv examiner to whom I referred in the first lecture, there 
W'ere all these appearances, and the stomach was nearly filled 
with horrible indigestible matter. Joshua Brookes carried that 
stomach home, and preserved it in his museum as a fine speci¬ 
men of the peculiar state of this organ in rabies. The other 
gentleman stoutly maintained to the last that there was no rabies 
at all. 
You will not at this time of day witness many scenes like this ; 
but to such an extent is it still the opinion of medical men that 
there are no evident or constant lesions, that you may occasion¬ 
ally be placed in somewhat unpleasant circumstances. My advice 
to you in such case is, “ do not give an opinion too hastily; but, 
your mind once made up, respectfully maintain your ground. 
Above all, do not be beaten from this position,—that although 
in many cases you are at once decided by the appearance which 
a certain organ presents, yet, in a great many more, you are in¬ 
fluenced by the grouping of the lesions, rather than by the 
intensity of any one of them.’^ 
Do I, then, mean to say that it is usually a very straightfor¬ 
ward course which the veterinary practitioner has to pursue— 
that the lesions are so manifest that he who runs may read ? 
With regard to the majority of cases, I again answer yes ! but 
on the other hand, it has occasionally been difficult to decide. It 
has been a mere inclination of opinion. The history of the case 
during life has been anxiously inquired into, and even, after all, 
the case has been somew’hat doubtful, and the application of the 
knife or the caustic has been had recourse to as a measure of 
precaution rather than of necessity. 
