RABIES VERSUS COMMON SENSE. 
499 
on i oculated may disabuse himself or herself of all danger; and 
hould inflammation of the wound supervene, with red lines slioot- 
' ng through the parts, indicative of inflamed absorbents along with 
wollen glands, it must be ascribed to causes other and remote 
rom rabies ! The law of coincidences is far more frequent in ap¬ 
plication than commonly supposed or understood ! 
Fifty distinct diseases of the human race are and may be mis- 
aken for rabies, including chronic alcoholism, the cocaine, choral, 
hloroform, ether, and opium habits, and the results that follow in 
heir train. This is not due so much to lack of medical education 
s to the fears of the individual, and of his advisors, medical and 
therwise; and the fact that the malady is of such infrequent occur¬ 
ence that less than one-fiftieth of one per cent, of the medical 
rofession are at all familiar with it or its manifestations; it de- 
lands such special study and research as not one in fifty thousand 
an give, and the teachings of medical schools are usually the 
blind leading the blind.” I might add with propriety that 
lose most familiar with rabies hesitate to impart anything regard- 
ig it, recognizing their own inability, and for other obvious 
masons, referring by preference to some author upon the sub¬ 
let, while witholding their own convictions. I may further add, 
lat with nearly a quarter of a century’s experience as physician, 
og-owner and breeder, naturalist and student of canine mala- 
ies, I have yet to encounter a case of true rabies in either the 
mine or human subject. Of some scores of suppositiously rabic 
ogs brought me, or personally investigated, both before and af- 
j ir death, all were found suffering, or to have suffered, from 
flier maladies, and by far the greater portion were epileptics, 
o of two cases in the human subject that seemed not to admit of 
I shadow of doubt; one died, when an antopsy revealed the 
ouble in an abscess of the middle lobe of the cerebrum that dur- 
g life had manifested none of the evidences whereby localiza- 
on is had ; the other recovered spontaneously, thereby giving 
ie lie to the diagnosis of some thirty able physicians. 
Of the influences inducing false rabies and the dangers there 
I will cite three cases, also from personal observation and 
lowledge: 1. A man of 45 who had all the manifestations of 
