THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XI, No. 127.] JULY 1838. [New Series, No. 07 . 
ANIMAL PATHOLOGY. 
By Mr. You ATT. 
LECTURE XX. 
The Improbability of spontaneous Rabies.—The Virus must be 
received on some abraded or wounded Surface .— The slightest 
Abrasion sufficient.—Mucous Surfaces .— The Coach Dog and 
the Horse.—How is Rabies propagated?—by Contagion 
alone.—Different Susceptibilities in different Animals .— The 
Cause of this. — Clothing.—Altered State of the Poison.—This 
an important Question.—Different Persons and Animals, dif¬ 
ferently predisposed.—The Virus resides in the Saliva.—The 
Time of its Incubation in the Human Being, Dog, Horse, 
Cattle, Sheep.—The Cause of the Irregularity of its Appear¬ 
ance .— The Power of Imagination. 
I AM reminded bv a kind friend, that I inioht have made a 
much stronger statement than I ventured to do in my last Lec¬ 
ture of the impossibility of producing rabies in the dog by any 
of the commonly supposed causes of it. The experiments 
of Bourgelat had been previously again and again tried in 
Italy by Redi, towards the close of the seventeenth century, 
and did not in a single instance succeed*. They were repeated 
with every possible variation by himself at Alfort. In the 
month of August he took three dogs, one of which was fed on 
salted meat, but without a drop of any kind of fluid. Anotlier 
had water set before him, but no solid food ; and the third had 
nothing either to eat or to drink. They died, but without the 
slightest symptom of rabies. The experiment was again per¬ 
formed in the month of January. The dogs died much sooner, 
probably from the diminution of temperature, but there was no 
rabiesj*. My friend adds, that there are several accounts of 
• Osservazioni interno afjli animali viventi, &c. In Firenze, 1G81,|). 9-1, 
t Instructions Vet^rinaires, tom. i, p. 294. 
Vo l,. X I. \ V 
