BY ALL RABID ANIMALS. 
225 
it destroys the patient by envenoming* the whole frame, or by ex¬ 
hausting every vital power. There is not a character wanting but 
this one,—the inability of communicating the disease. We must 
have irrefragable proof of this before we can give credence to it, 
or, rather, it is evidently stamped with absurdity. 
It may be replied, that every disease is governed by its own 
laws, and that this may be one of the laws by which rabies is go¬ 
verned, and that facts lead to that conclusion ; for hydrophobia 
has never yet been traced to empoisonment from the virus of an 
animal that does not use his teeth as weapons of offence. 
We will give this reply the attention which it deserves ; for 
we confess that arguments from analogy are generally useless, 
and sometimes worse than useless, on medical subjects. The ap¬ 
peal is to facts, and to facts we will bow. 
We w ill admit, for a moment, that there may not be on record 
a case of hydrophobia produced by inoculation with the saliva of 
an animal who does not use his teeth as weapons of offence; 
and, as this w ould exclude the horse, w ho does use his teeth as 
w eapons of offence, we will admit further, that there may not be 
on record a case of hydrophobia produced by any but a carnivo¬ 
rous animal. 
Cases of hydrophobia have multiplied of late ; but they are yet 
rare. A medical man, in the course of a long and extensive 
practice, sees not more than one or two, although thousands of 
persons are bitten by suspected or rabid dogs. It fell to our lot 
to be consulted, in the course of the last year, respecting more 
than fifty persons bitten by dogs decidedly rabid ; and Mr. Brodie 
stated, that out of more than four thousand persons bitten by dogs 
suspected, or actually rabid, since he became connected with 
St. George's Hospital, notone, to his knowledge, had become hy- 
drophobous. From fortunate want of predisposition in the human 
being to take on the disease, or from the timely use of proper pre¬ 
ventive measures, we may safely say, that not one person in many 
hundreds, bitten by dogs decidedly rabid, does become hydro- 
phobous. Mr. John Hunter believed, that if twenty persons w ere 
bitten by a rabid dog, and no preventive measures w ere adopted, 
not more than one, on the average, would become hydrophobous. 
