224 ON THE COMMUNICATION OF RABIES 
But the question, w hether the horse is capable of communicat¬ 
ing the disease, has never been fairly agitated. Much as we 
have at stake in the decision of it, no one has thought it worth his 
while seriously to take it up. My principal aim in this article will 
be to bring together all that we know about it, and to endeavour 
to induce my brethren to favour us with the result of their experi¬ 
ence and knowledge, and to institute a course of experiments 
which may possibly set the matter at rest. 
It is the prevailing opinion among medical men, and veteri¬ 
nary practitioners too, that rabies can be communicated only by 
those animals who use their teeth as weapons of offence. No one 
denies that this dreadful malady may be propagated by the bite, 
of the dog, cat, wolf, fox, and badger ; but it is denied that it 
can be produced by the saliva of the horse, ox, or sheep. A gen¬ 
tleman high in our profession, certainly not aware of the degree 
of laceration, laughed at our young friend, and said that he would 
exchange situations with him for a pound. Sir Astley Cooper, on 
being consulted, treated the matter very lightly. “ Rabies,” he 
said, “ cannot be propagated by the bite of an herbivorous ani¬ 
mal. Carnivorous animals alone have that fatal power.” This, 
we apprehend, would have been the answer of nineteen surgeons 
out of twenty ; yet Sir Astley Cooper concluded by wishing io 
apply the nitric acid to the ivound: for what reason we cannot 
divine, if he believed there was no danger. 
Now, I ask, is there any other contagious disease which the 
person or the animal labouring under it, of every species, cannot 
propagate ? Will one of this host of great men condescend to tell 
me of a single contagious malady, affecting a single animal, where 
there is this peculiar innocuousness ? The human being and the 
quadruped, not, perhaps, with equal facility, but in numerous in¬ 
stances, take on almost every contagious disease, when exposed to 
the exciting cause of them. Speaking of the plague at Athens, 
Lucretius tells us,-— 
Cum primis fida canura vis 
Strata anirnam ponebant in omnibus aegre. 
I ask for the physiological or pathological reason or fact, which 
should give the susceptibility of disease to all, and confine the 
power of communication to a few. The malady is plainly deve¬ 
loped; it assumes the usual character; it runs the usual course; 
