398 
ANIMAL PATHOLOGY. 
wards. A surgeon excised the bitten part, and the disease dis¬ 
appeared. After a period of six days the symptoms returned. 
The wound was examined. Considerable fungus was found 
sprouting from its bottom. This was extirpated. The hydro- 
phobic symptoms were again removed, and the man did well. 
This is a most instructive case. 
If we can trace tetanus in the horse to a prick or wound, we 
immediately excise or apply the cautery to the part; for we reason 
that, although the system is affected, still we may destroy that 
which keeps up and increases the morbid action. I do not think 
that this point is sufficiently attended to. 
Amputation above the part which a rabid dog had bitten was 
performed at one of our own hospitals, on a poor fellow labouring 
under hydrophobia. The man died, but 1 do fully exculpate the 
surgeon who advised and performed the operation*. 
One lecture more will complete this all-important question. 
The knife and the caustic are the grand preventives; and the 
surgeon must decide for himself with respect to their compara¬ 
tive value. I am not presumptuous enough to condemn the use 
of the scalpel—I often used it fairly to get at the wound ; but I 
honestly confess that I prefer the caustic. I hope that at this 
period I may do so without being exposed to the gratuitous 
abuse of former days. I have had seven-and-twenty years’ ex¬ 
perience of its power on myself and others. I confidently appeal 
to my pupils everywhere, and many of them the ornaments of 
their profession ; and I might also appeal to many of the stars 
of the medical profession, who, having tested its pow’er, now 
place their chief dependence upon it. 
* That gentleman published a defence of the operation, which did much 
credit to his talent and his feelings. On one part of his argument I must, 
however, be allowed to animadvert. He performed the operation after the 
matter had been absorbed—after the whole constitution had been affected, 
and thirty hours after the disease had been manifestly developed; and I 
offer him my humble meed of praise for the bold and judicious determina¬ 
tion. But, says he, “the result of the experiment must serve to convince 
everybody that the notion of the rabid matter being retained in the part 
up to the time of the breaking out of the hydrophobic symptoms is alto¬ 
gether fallacious, and undeserving of further attention.’’ 
Could not this gentleman’s excellent good sense have instructed him 
that his experiment had nothing to do with the question of ‘the retain- 
ment of the virus in the bitten part until the hydrophobic symptoms 
had developed themselves,’ because he did not operate until they had deve¬ 
loped themselves, and the virus, in every one’s opinion, had been absorbed, if it 
ever is ? 
