CAUSE OF RABIES. 
279 
often generated from breathing a confined atmosphere, impreg¬ 
nated with an animal poison from the lungs, faeces, urine, and 
skin; and it will be more or less prevalent as dogs are more or 
less exposed to these causes*.” 
1 would respectfully ask for proof of this. At a former period 
of my life, I seldom had fewer than twenty dogs in my hospital, 
and often double that number. There was as much attention to 
cleanliness as I could enforce, but there was occasional neglect, 
and often most villainous smells; yet I can truly say, that, in 
the course of five-and-twenty years’ practice, I had not a single 
case of spontaneous rabies. During the greater part of that 
time —I will not say that I was free of the cellars of the dog 
dealers, but 1 had continual occasion to go into them, and more 
filthy and horrible places it is almost impossible to imagine. I 
have seen there mange, leprosy, and distemper. I have known 
dogs consigned to them in perfect health; and when, a few 
weeks afterw^ards, they have been liberated, they had contracted 
diseases, from the influence of which they never perfectly re- 
covered : but I never knew or heard of a single case of rabies 
resulting from this horrible confineme^it; and, therefore, I am 
authorized in challenging, and I do challenge the production of 
one. I only bargain for a detailed history of the case, and I am 
justified in that by the account which Professor Coleman himself 
gives of cases of supposed rabies produced by these agents. He 
says, that he knows of one instance of canine madness” being 
produced by these causes, viz. in the subscription pack of 
ibx-hounds in Surrey, which had the disease to a considerable 
extent; and there was one remarkable fact, that the dogs did 
not bite the bitches, nor the bitches bite the dogsf.” Now, this 
remarkable fact” inclines me to suspect that there was no 
rabies in the case. I have long been accustomed to regard a 
forgetfulness of the courtesy and kindness due to the female as 
one of the most decisive characters of rabies. It is seldom that 
any serious quarrels occur in the kennel between the dog and 
the bitch, if they are suffered to be together; but the moment 
that the effect of the rabid virus is fully developed, all distinction 
of sex is either forgotten, or, if the animal feeling is sometimes 
♦ Minutes of Evidence on Canine Madness. Vetkrinarian, voI. iii, 
page 636. 
Professor Coleman also states, in his Lectures, that want of ventilation, 
and exposure to this animal poison, is the cause of the rot in sheep. 
Being folded too closely, they inhale each others’ breath, and the poisonous 
gases which emanate from their dung and urine. Folded in the open air, 
and the winds of heaven blowing over them from every (juarter, they be¬ 
come rotted from the want of snflicient ventilation!! 
t Vf-terinakian, vol. iii, p. 6.36. 
