RABIES AND HYDROPHOBIA. 
675 
existence of rabies kindly inform 11s where in the veterinary 
literature of the world a disease other than rabies has been de¬ 
scribed which includes the features shown by these animals ; a 
disease starting with the dog, communicable by biting, and by 
inoculation with the fresh medulla, having 26 to 38 days incu¬ 
bation, characterized by excitability, viciousness and paralysis, 
and ending in death in the course of one or two days ? The 
speaker can only refer these characters to one disease, and that 
disease is rabies. The nature of the disease was clearly indi¬ 
cated by the post-mortem examination of the dog and by the 
inoculation of rabbits. It was unquestionably the same disease 
as affected the other dogs tested in the laboratory and to which 
reference has already been made. 
The assertion made by a few individuals that an identical 
disease may be produced in experimental animals by inocula¬ 
ting subdurally with brain substance from healthy animals or 
even with inert substances is not supported by the facts. That 
paralysis and death may be caused by simple injuries to the 
brain is evident ; but the animals so injured do not show the 
long period of incubation of rabies ; they do not present the 
symptoms of nervousness, restlessness, irritability, viciousness,, 
fury and paralysis, in succession and leading to death in a few 
days after the appearance of the first symptoms ; they do not 
develop virulent saliva by which the disease may be communi¬ 
cated from animal to animal by means of subcutaneous or in¬ 
tramuscular inoculations. That is, rabies is a contagious dis¬ 
ease, the most prominent characteristic of which is the viru¬ 
lence of the saliva ; and paralysis produced by mechanical in¬ 
juries to the brain can no more be accepted by pathologists as 
rabies, than can ulcers in the nose produced by caustics be ac¬ 
cepted as glanders, or than inflammation of the lungs produced 
by the injection of oil of turpentine can be accepted as con¬ 
tagious pleuro-pneumonia. 
RABIES IN MAN. 
Admitting the existence of rabies in dogs and other ani¬ 
mals, is the disease communicable to man ? Are we to accept 
