352 
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j. A. COUTURE. 
The Veterinary Journal , already mentioned in this article on rabies, 
says “that this extraordinary prolonged latency in man cannot be lost sight 
of by the veterinary pathologist, as it. may serve to explain some of these 
outbreaks in which the scourge appears to rise spontaneously and without 
the intervention of a pre-existing contagion. If the virus can lie dor¬ 
mant for three or five years in man, why not also in dogs ? And if so, 
need we wonder that after the cessation of an outbreak of rabies among 
the canine population of a district or a country, another may occur in 
three or five years ?”* 
It is said that of the human patients inoculated, those that are more 
likely to be affected by the disease, are those possessed of a nervous 
temperament, and that mental excitement greatly assists in the develop¬ 
ment of the malady. However, when we come to consider ; first, that 
the veterinary patients, of whom we cannot say the same thing, give as 
many positive results when inoculated with rabific virus, as the human 
beings; second, that the period of latency seems longer in man than in 
animals; third, that the young child who is full of confidence in the 
doctor, called to dress his wound, and whose mind is as quiet after the 
patient has been dressed as it was before he was bitten, presents the 
same symptoms, and is as often affected with the disease, when inocu¬ 
lated, as the adult, it must be permitted to doubt the theory that men¬ 
tal excitement hastens the development of the malady, or generates 
another disease similar to hydrophobia. 
Symptoms in Dogs. —The dog that is going mad feels unwell for 
some time prior to the full development of the disease. He feels nasty; 
vexed without a reason and very snappish; avoids annoyance by being- 
alone. This makes him seem strange to those who are accustomed to 
him. The sun is to him an instrument of torture, this induces the poor 
brute to find out the holes and corners. His apetites are altered—hair, 
straw, filth, dirt, excrements, tin shavings, stones, the most noisome and 
unnatural substances are then the delicacies for which he longs and 
swallows. At this stage he will drink very freely sometimes, does not 
desire to bite mankind, and rather endeavors to avoid society. He 
takes, sometimes, long journeys, proceeding in a slouching manner, in a 
kind of trot, a movement neither run nor walk, his aspect being dejected. 
His appearance is very characteristic, and if once seen can never be 
forgotten. In these journeys his tongue hangs dry from the mouth* 
He does not look for something to bite, but, however, if anything 
* Veterinary Journal , October, 1877. 
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