576 
D. E. SALMON. 
never were held by a majority of the profession and which were 
discredited and disproved years, ago. 
The mistaken views to which reference has just been made 
may be briefly enumerated as follows : 
1. There is no specific disease to which the term rabies can 
be applied. This alleged disease has not been clearly defined 
and no characteristic features have been enumerated by which 
it can be identified. The supposed cases of rabies are ordinary 
affections such as indigestion, epileptic fits, cerebritis, paralysis, 
etc., improperly diagnosed. 
2. There may be such a disease as rabies, but it is extremely 
rare. Nearly all the cases alleged to be rabies are ordinary 
diseases improperly diagnosed. Not one dog in a million sup¬ 
posed to be rabid is really affected with that disease, says one 
writer, and this opinion is echoed by the editor of a prominent 
medical journal. 
3. The method of diagnosis by the inoculation of rabbits 
and guinea-pigs is uncertain and misleading. The same results 
may be obtained by inoculating with inert substances. 
4. Admitting that rabies of the dog may be encountered in 
extremely rare instances, the disease is nevertheless not com¬ 
municable to man. The alleged rabies of man is a nervous 
affection developed as the result of worry and fear after being 
bitten-—it is really lyssopliobia. 
5. The destruction of superfluous dogs and the muzzling of 
does for the control of rabies are cruel and unnecessarv 
measures. 
It appears to the writer simply astounding that educated 
men, much less physicians and veterinarians, will put forward 
such propositions as these in regard to a disease which has 
been known and described in every age since the faintest dawn 
of history and which for a century has been the subject of ex¬ 
perimental investigation by the ablest men who have occupied 
their minds with pathological questions. Nevertheless, it is a 
fact that the sanitarian of to-day who tries to control rabies is 
obliged to meet the same kind of arguments which were used 
