ANIMAL PATH()L(X;Y. 
Si)2 
it is not too much to hope, that we may at some future time be 
able materially to assist her in her struggjle, or, perhaps, to fight 
the battle without her aid. 
Then, gentlemen, it has been proved, and I hope demonstra¬ 
tively, that rabies is propagated by inoculation. 1 do again ask 
for one decisive proof of the contrary. It has also been esta¬ 
blished that, although every animal labouring under this disease 
is capable of communicating it, yet, with very few exceptions, it 
can be traced to the bite of the dog. It has still farther been 
shewn, that the malady generally appears at some period between 
the third and the seventh week from the time of inoculation. At 
the expiration of the eighth month the animal may be con¬ 
sidered to be in a manner safe, for there is only one case on 
record in which the disease appeared in the dog after the seventh 
month from the bite had passed. 
Then it would appear that, if a species of quarantine could be 
established, and every dog were conhned separately for eight 
months, the disease would be annihilated in our country ; or could 
only re-appear in consequence of the importation of some in¬ 
fected animal. Rabies is progressively increasing in Great 
Britain, and in most of the European states. The number of 
cases of rabies that have occurred in the present year is 
most fearful. My late partner, Mr. Ainslie, has had more than 
forty. To whatever extent it may progress, such a restriction 
could never be enforced, either in the sporting world or among 
the peasantry. Other measures, however, might be resorted to 
in order to lessen the devastations of this malady, and that 
which first presents itself to the mind as the cause of rabies is 
the number of useless and dangerous dogs that are kept—in the 
country for the most nefarious, and in the neighbourhood of 
considerable towns for the most brutal, purposes. 
In almost every large town a dog-pit, a perfect nursery of 
crime of every description, is to be found. I will not trust my¬ 
self to speak of the barbarous deeds which used to a horrible 
extent to be there perpetrated. They were libels on human 
nature. In the neighbourhood of the metropolis, and, I believe, 
of other large towns, the public dog-pit has been put down; but 
the system of dog-fighting, with many of its attendant atrocities, 
still continues. There are many more low public-houses than 
there used to be pits that have roomy places behind and out of 
sight, where there are regular meetings for this purpose; and 
certain of our young aristocracy keep fighting-dogs at the repo¬ 
sitories of some dealers in the outskirts of the metropolis. There 
these animals remain as at livery, and their owners come at their 
pleasure and enact what brutalities they please. I will not enter 
