APPENDIX.-D. 
325 
the time it was written, was calculated to do infinite good, by- 
banishing some dangerous and erroneous opinions relative to it. 
“In 1806, rabies among dogs became very common in Eng¬ 
land, and abounded in the vicinity of London, where, during 
the next year, it increased to such a degree, that a day seldom 
passed without my being consulted on one or more cases of it; 
sometimes I have seen three, four, or five a day, for weeks 
together. In the two following years it continued to rage also : 
after which, for several subsequent years, it was less prevalent; 
but it never became apparently extinct or rare as before. In 
1820 it was again observed to be on the increase, and for three 
or four years continued alarmingly common, when it again 
moderated for a few following seasons; but since 1828 its 
ravages have exceeded even its former bounds. Of these latter 
visitations I have been a more quiet spectator; but of those 
which occurred between 1805 and 1820, I was a very active 
one. The publicity which attached to my attention to the dis¬ 
eases of dogs occasioned constant reference to me on the sub¬ 
ject, and threw such opportunities in my way of observing this 
dire malady in all its varieties in both man and beast, as had 
probably, at that time , never before fallen to the lot of any indi¬ 
vidual whatever. These opportunities, I believe, I did not 
neglect; it was a field so little trodden, that the few truths 
which had sprung up were choaked by error; and the impor¬ 
tance of the subject at that time was such, that it became impe¬ 
rative on those whose experience enabled them to do it, to set 
the subject in its true light, and to divest it of many gross and 
serious mistakes that hung about it; and which none but those 
whose opportunities of observation were great, and whose incli¬ 
nation to profit by them was also considerable, could do. To¬ 
wards the close, therefore, of 1807, I placed before the public, 
in a Domestic Treatise on Horses and Dogs , a detailed account 
of rabies ; and soon after, being requested to furnish an account 
of it also for the Cyclopaedia of Dr. Rees, a condensed form of 
it was there inserted. 
