164 
HERMANN M. BIGGS. 
compared with the crowds of wandering dogs; the difficulty of 
explaining the maintenance of the disease in every region after 
long interruptions—all this would lead to the supposition that in¬ 
oculation is not the sole cause in Algeria. 
But whatever disagreement there may have been among 
writers as to the spontaneous origin of rabies, there has always 
been the greatest unanimity as to its contagious nature. This im¬ 
portant fact has been universally recognized by the most com¬ 
petent medical writers from the very earliest times. But more 
recently, we may say, it has been almost fully established that 
this contagious principle, whatever may be its nature, is the only 
“evident, efficient, and incontestable cause” in the production of 
this malady. The occasional spontaneous development of the 
disease in certain of the carnivora, as advocated by many veter¬ 
inarians, must be entirely rejected, in view of the facts recently 
demonstrated with relation to the germ diseases, and we must 
accept absolutely the conclusion that “this disease is maintained 
and spread solely by its contagious principle, and that there are 
no other causes in operation.” 
The facts adduced by Boucher, Fleming, Tardieu, Bouley, and 
others, to prove the spontaneous appearance of the disease, may 
be readily and rationally explained on the ground of its purely 
contagious nature, and the arguments brought forward to sustain 
the former view may be easily refuted. It is a matter of the 
greatest importance that those fallacious ideas should be corrected 
which are so prevalent among the laity, and to no small extent 
among the profession in regard to the influence of climate, season, 
hunger, thirst, food, pain, anger, an unsatisfied sexual desire, and 
the thousand other causes that have at one time or another been 
adduced as predisposing to or producing the disease in dogs. 
There are no better or more reasonable grounds for believing 
that any one or all these influences combined can bring about the 
development of a single case of rabies than that unfavorable sani¬ 
tary conditions can produce small-pox when the specific contagium 
vivum of the disease is not present. So strong has been the 
popular belief in the effects of the season in the production of 
rabies, that not even the testimony of indisputable facts has been 
