1)0(1 ~H O USE— C ATT EE — SH EE P. 
im 
tion, it is a most lamentable and dreadtul aflair. There are other 
accounts, but of a very questionable character, in which more 
than twenty years are said to have intervened. The usual time, 
I believe, is calculated at about six weeks, or extending from 
three weeks (Dr. Mason Good says, ten or twelve days) to six or 
seven months. 
l)og .—I have never seen a case in which plain and palpable 
rabies occurred in less than fourteen days after the bite. The 
average time I should calculate at five or six weeks. At three 
months I should consider the animal as tolerably safe. I am 
aware that some of my brother-practitioners allow a considerably 
longer period : I am, however, relating my own experience, and 
I know but two instances in which the period far exceeded three 
months. In one of them five months elapsed, and the other did 
not become affected until after the expiration of the seventh 
month. 
Ho rse .—The average time of the appearance of rabies in the 
horse is from one to two months after the bite. Three months 
having elapsed, I should consider this animal also as tolerably 
safe; but I know of one exception in which more than four 
months intervened. 
Cattle .—The period of incubation is about the same as in 
the dog and the horse ; perhaps it is somewhat less. I have 
no case on record in which it extended beyond the tenth week. 
Sheep. —Here, also, the intervening time is short. I have 
several accounts of its appearing in less than three weeks after 
the bite, and not one in which the tenth week was exceeded. 
The Cause of this Irregularitij .—It appears, then, that there is 
great irregularity as to the time of the development of the full 
action of this animal poison ; considerably more so than with 
regard to any other poison of this class. The quality and quan¬ 
tity of the virus may have considerable influence; so, also, may 
the predisposition in the bitten animal to be affected by the poison. 
It will naturally be supposed that the mind will have consider¬ 
able influence on the maturation of a disease so completely of a 
nervous character; and so will the recurrence of certain periodical 
states in which the mental and bodily faculties are peculiarly ex¬ 
alted. If a bitch has been inoculated with the rabid virus, the 
disease will, in a great many cases, be fully developed at the 
period of oestrum or parturition. If it becomes connected with 
the former, she is then a disgustingly salacious and a fearfully 
dangerous animal;—if with parturition, her maternal love assumes 
the form of true monomania. She is shifting her young ones from 
one place to another—incessantly and violently licking them. 
It is a singular and horrible j)erversion of maternal a/fection. No 
