RABIES VERSUS COMMON SENSE. 
447 
ory system; under other circumstances the virus is inoccuous, 
nd may be swallowed or applied to sound cutaneous or mucus 
urfaces with impunity, and the flesh of rabic creatures can be 
mrtaken of as food without fear. 
The saliva is the only factor definitely producing rabic-virus. 
r t alone has ever been known positively to communicate the disease , 
,nd the inoculation of creatures by other assumed rabic mate- 
ials secures no phenomena that are not likewise developed by 
he use of other septic (non-rabic) substances. .Recently Galtier, 
f Lyons, one of the most able, thorough and candid observers 
I ver produced by France, undertook some hundreds of experi- 
flents, whereby was developed the fact that the materies morbi 
*f rabies is contained in the saliva of the dog alone, and that in¬ 
sulation with portions of salivary and parotid glands, with the 
.ontents of the stomach, with the blood, with secretions of the 
pancreas, and with brain and spinal substance and fluid, led to no 
nfection. He further cultivated the virus of rabid dogs in nor¬ 
mal saliva and vaccinated rabbits and Guinea pigs that died in 
rom four to twelve days; but on vaccinating dogs again with 
he saliva of these creatures, he was unable to produce rabies in 
h single instance . Dr. Spitzka, of New York, also, as recently as 
flay and June of the present year, secured to a number of 
anines (exhibited to the “ Society of Medical Jurisprudence and 
Itate Medicine ”) all the phenomena ascribed to a vaccinated 
abies as developed from supposed rabic substances other than 
aliva, and by the inoculation of simple septic materials procured 
rom healthy and diseased (non-rabic) creatures alike, as well as 
>y other and aseptic substances. 
Experience and experimentation have also demonstrated, aside 
rom the foregoing, that the rabic poison can be transmitted only 
hrough, or by, the true carnivorce —creatures whose lives are 
lependent upon animal foods, and that are liable to retain in and 
bout the mouth and teeth particles of decaying and putrid 
nimal matters that are of themselves capable of provoking septic- 
•oisoning in those bitten. Hence, wounds inflicted by dogs and 
ther carnivorce are in no sense evidence of rabies , even if followed 
y serious or fatal results; and this leads to the inevitable con- 
