CAUSE OF RABIES. 
283 
1 have already spoken of the degree in which the rabid dog 
is bent on mischief, and the difficulties which he will overcome 
in order to accomplish his object. They are almost inconceiv¬ 
able. In the great majority of cases, however, we can prove the 
actual inoculation. 
The immediate Effect of the Inoculation, —Well! the wound is 
inflicted, and the virus is deposited on its surface; and there it 
remains, seemingly inert. I know not why the poison of the 
viper should begin to act at once, and that of the rabid dog 
should be inert for many a day or week; but so it is. The 
wound generally heals up kindly : in fact, it differs in no respect 
from a similar wound inflicted by the teeth of an animal 
in perfect health. Weeks, months in some cases, pass on, and 
there is nothing to indicate danger; until, in the human being, 
and probably in the quadruped, there are pain and itching in the 
cicatrix, and extending from it towards the cerebrum or the 
spine. 
There is, in some dogs, a considerable state of excitation of the 
genital organs at the commencement of the disease: the bitch 
labours under almost irrepressible oestrum, and the dog eagerly, 
and, as I have said, ferociously attacks every bitch he meets. This 
is only what the medical man observes occasionally in his pa¬ 
tients. Priapism and involuntary emissions are far from being 
unfrequent. They prove nothing as to the origin and cause of the 
disease—they only shew that it is one of the nervous system, 
and by which every division of that system is in turns irritated 
and finally exhausted. I do not feel it necessary to say more of 
the theories of Dr. Capello and others, who trace this malady to 
the non-gratification of the sexual appetite. This system is in¬ 
volved with others in a malady essentially of the nervous func¬ 
tions; but so far as the quadruped, and particularly the dog, is 
concerned, the animals that are confined, and under constant sur¬ 
veillance, escape its attack; while the rabid dogs are generally 
those that are often abroad with frequent opportunity to gratify 
this appetite, but exposed to danger from the attack of other dogs. 
The Virus resides in the Saliva .—In what secretion of the 
rabid animal does the virus reside ? In the saliva, and that alone. 
A poisonous fluid mingles with it, or the saliva itself is altered in 
its properties. I am not aware that the saliva of the rabid dog 
has ever been submitted to chemical analysis. It would be a 
difficult and a dangerous process. It is deposited in the wound. 
It is brought into contact with some tissue or nervous fibril. It 
lies there dormant for a considerable and uncertain period, and 
longer in some animals than in others. It seemingly remains 
perfectly undecomposed. The absorbents are actively at work in 
