APPENDIX.-D. 329 
can give rise to it, although it may favor the extension and 
activity of the contagion. 
“ Among innumerable experiments which have been made, I 
will only notice the cruel but striking one at the Veterinary 
School of Alfort. Three dogs were chained, fully exposed to 
the heat of the sun. Nothing but salted meat was given to one, 
water alone to the second ; and neither food nor drink to the 
third. As might be expected, every one perished ; but neither 
of them exhibited the slightest symptoms of rabies. See Disser¬ 
tation sur la rage , by M. Bleynier, Paris.” 
Mr. Blaine continues to discuss this point at some length, 
learnedly and curiously no doubt, as the cognate question, also, 
whether the disease arose spontaneously at first, in the Dog, or 
in some of his congeners, such as the Wolf, Fox, or Jackal;— 
but these questions, however curious or interesting, become 
merely matters of investigation and hypothetical enquiry for cri¬ 
tics, being set at rest for all purposes of practical utility, by the 
positive dictum, that the disease is now—even in the dog— never 
spontaneously generated —the remarks concerning food, 
drink, climate, &c., I admitted here, not on their own account 
so much, as in corroboration of that dictum. Thereafter follows 
a discussion as to what animals are liable to this malady, and 
capable of communicating it to others—the reply to which 
appears to be conclusive : that all quadrupeds may be attacked 
by it, and may convey the contagion to others, although the 
probability of doing so is of course increased or diminished by 
the natural predisposition of the animal to bite, or the reverse. 
Again, it appears to be certain, that the virus or communi¬ 
cating medium resides in the saliva of the rabid animal only — 
that the flesh, the blood, and the milk are innocent, whether 
injected or taken inwardly—and lastly, that the virus can be 
communicated through a wound or abrasion of the outer skin 
and not otherwise—although it is barely possible that it may be 
received through the mucous membrane of the lips, eyelids, or 
nostrils. 
Whether the activity of the poison ceases with the life of the 
rabid animal, is still a mooted point, and cannot be proved 
