EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
473 
the public mind, at this especial season, is apt to be morbidly 
sensitive on the subject, as the following short paragraph, 
which we take from the Morning Post of the 20th of July last, 
is only another proof :—“ On Wednesday, a mad dog was 
killed in Tavistock Square. Although the usual notices 
have been put forth by the different parishes, cautioning 
the owners of dogs to have them muzzled at this season, yet 
one of the scarcest things to be seen at present is a dog that 
has been (is?) muzzled.” 
We had entertained some hope that the sensible letter 
of Mr. Litt, Y.S., of Shrewsbury, sent last June* to the 
Shreivsbury Chronicle ,* might have obtained sufficient cir¬ 
culation, even in our metropolitan journals, to have rendered 
the subject a fitting one for further investigation, if not to 
have created interest enough in it to make it matter of 
question, whether or not the practice of muzzling dogs 
really was or was not calculated to fulfil the intentions 
designed by it. Mr. Litt says, and we join issue with him 
in the observations — te The quietest of dogs may be made 
savage by keeping them continually tied up; and the use of 
the muzzle alone will, in most cases, make them snappish 
and ill-tempered.” Added to which, stands the fact, as 
stated, on authority, by him, ee That dogs are not more sub¬ 
ject to rabies in hot weather than in cold,” and that, there¬ 
fore, it would be as reasonable to muzzle dogs in December 
as in July. Muzzling, however, is one of our grandmama’s 
practices; and we all know with what bird-lime tenacity old 
customs of this, or almost any other sort, are, without in¬ 
quiring into their right or wrong, obstinately clung to. 
To take reason along with us in the consideration of such 
matters, if we wish to prevent a disease, we usually find it 
desirable to search for the cause or causes of such disease; 
and having found them, we use all means in our power to 
eschew them, or else to shield our subject from their opera¬ 
tion. To apply this in the case before us : if rabies be caused 
by transmission of the saliva of a rabid subject, and by that 
alone, it is evident that the muzzle cannot save one dog 
* Extracted into our Journal for December 1851, 
