70 MINUTES OF EVIDENCE ON CANINE MADNESS. 
Have you any opinion which you would like to give the Com¬ 
mittee, differing' from that of your experience?—No. 
Have the number of cases of hydrophobia to which you have 
been called in been more numerous than usual within the last 
four or five months ?—I have not seen one case within that period; 
I have heard of many, but I have not seen one. 
Now as to the effect of the virus of a dog- in a rabid state, do 
you think it could be safely taken into the stomach, provided the 
coats of the stomach were in a sound state?—Undoubtedly. 
Do you think that the virus might be safely rubbed into any 
part of the person, provided there w as no puncture or cut in the 
skin?—I think all experience tends to make me believe so (I 
have had no experience of my own to form an opinion one way 
or the other in that respect). From the nature of the animal 
economy, however, and the action of the other animal poisons, 
I should say, that rubbing the virus on a sound skin could not 
communicate the disease. 
Tw r o cases have been stated as being on record; one>in Avhich 
a person near death, from hydrophobia, kissed one of his children, 
on which the child went rabid ; the second, the case of a person 
untying a knot in a rope with his teeth, by which a rabid dog 
had been fastened up, on which he also became affected with 
hydrophobia: do you not think that the probability is, that in 
the first case the child must also have been bitten; and in the 
second, the lips must have been sore, to produce the effect 
stated ?—I think, if the cases be well authenticated, that, in the 
first instance, there must have been a chap or some small abrasion, 
or some sore or ulcer on the lips of the child ; and the same must 
have existed in the second case also; but I doubt the authenticity 
of both cases. 
You state very confidently your opinion, that the disease can 
only be communicated by the virus being taken into the system 
by means of inoculation?—Yes; the disease can originate from 
no other source in man. 
Is there any complaint so like it that you may mistake it for 
hydrophobia?—The symptoms are peculiar to itself, so that the 
disease cannot be mistaken by an observing physician. 
Is there any complaint which ignorant people would be likely 
to take for that disease ?—I think all cases in which hydrophobic 
symptoms occur (I mean in which there is a dread of water) 
might be mistaken for hydrophobia. It is a vulgar error that 
patients in hydrophobia are mad; they are not mad; there is no 
such thing as madness connected with the disease: it is a disease 
of the respiratory nerves; its chief seat is in the cervical, dorsal, 
and lumbar portions of the spinal column. 
