The Dog

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I insisted on detaining the dog, and gave the man a letter to the
surgeon, telling him all my fears. He promptly acted on the hint, and
before evening, the proper means were taken with regard to all three.

I watched this dog day after day. He would not eat, but he drank a great
deal more water than I liked. The surgeon was evidently beginning to
doubt whether I was not wrong, but he could not dispute the occasional
wandering of the eye, and the frequent spume upon the water. On the 26th
of October, however, the sixth day after his arrival, we both of us
heard the rabid howl burst from him: he did not, however, die until the
30th. I mention this as another instance of the great difficulty there
is to determine the real nature of the case in an early stage of the
disease.

M. Perquin relates an interesting case. A lady had a greyhound, nine
years old, that was accustomed to lie upon her bed at night, and cover
himself with the bed-clothes. She remarked, one morning, that he had
torn the covering of his bed, and, although he ate but little, drank
oftener, and in larger quantity, than he was accustomed to do. She led
him to a veterinary surgeon, who assured her that there was nothing
serious the matter. On the following day, he bit her fore-finger near
the nail, as she was giving him something to eat. She led him again to
the veterinary surgeon, who assured her that she needed not to be under
the least alarm, and as for the little wound on her finger, it was of no
consequence. On the following day, the 27th of December, the dog died.
He had not ceased to drink most abundantly to the very last.

On the 4th of February, as the lady was dining with her husband, she
found some difficulty in deglutition. She wished to take some wine, but
was unable to swallow it.

On the 5th, she consulted a surgeon. He wished her to swallow a little
soup in his presence. She attempted to do it, but could not accomplish
her object after many an effort. She then fell into a state of violent
agitation, with constriction of the pharynx, and the discharge of a
viscid fluid from the mouth.

On the 7th, she died, four days after the first attack of the disease,
and in a state of excessive loss of flesh.

There can be no doubt that both the dog and his mistress died rabid, the
former having communicated the disease to the latter; but there is no
satisfactory account of the manner in which the dog became diseased. [1]

Joseph Delmaire, of Looberghe, twenty-nine years old, was, on the 6th of
October, 1836, bitten in the hand by a dog that he met with in the
forest, and that was evidently rabid. On the following morning, he went
to a medical man of some repute in the country, who washed the wound,
and scarified it, and terminated the operation by tracing a bloody cross
on the forehead of the patient.

He returned home, but he was far from being satisfied. The image of the
dog that had attacked him was always before him, and his sleep was
troubled with the most frightful dreams. So passed four-and-twenty days,
when Delmaire, rising from his bed, felt the most dreadful trepidation;
he panted violently; it seemed as if an enormous weight oppressed his
chest, and from time to time there was profound sighing and sobbing. He
complained every moment that he was smothered. He attempted to drink,
but it was with great difficulty that a few drops of barley-water were
swallowed. His mouth was dry, his throat burning, his thirst excessive,
and all that he attempted to swallow was rejected with horror.

At nine o'clock at night he was largely bled. His respiration was more
free, but the dread of every fluid remained. After an hour's repose, he
started and felt the most fearful pain in every limb--his whole body was
agitated with violent convulsions. The former place of bleeding was
reopened, and a great quantity of blood escaped. The pulse became small
and accelerated. The countenance was dreadful--the eyes were starting
from their sockets--he continually sprung from his seat and uttered the
most fearful howling. A quantity of foam filled his mouth, and compelled
a continued expectoration. In his violent fits, the strength of six men
was not sufficient to keep him on his bed. In the midst of a sudden
recess of fury he would disengage himself from all that were attempting
to hold him, and dash himself on the floor; there, freed from all
control, he rolled about, beat himself, and tore everything that he
could reach. In the short intervals that separated these crises, he
regained possession of his reasoning powers: he begged his old father to
pardon him, he talked to him and to those around with the most intense
affection, and it was only when he felt that a new attack was at hand,
that he prayed them to leave him. At length his mental excitation began
to subside; his strength was worn out, and he suffered himself to be
placed on his bed. The horrible convulsions from time to time returned,
but the dread of liquors had ceased. He demanded something to drink.
They gave him a little white wine, but he was unable to swallow it; it
was returned through his nostrils. The poor fellow then endeavoured to
sleep; but it was soon perceived that he had ceased to live.

The early symptoms of rabies in the dog are occasionally very obscure.
In the greater number of cases, these are sullenness, fidgetiness, and
continual shifting of posture. Where I have had opportunity, I have
generally found these circumstances in regular succession. For several
consecutive hours perhaps he retreats to his basket or his bed. He shows
no disposition to bite, and he answers the call upon him laggardly. He
is curled up and his face is buried between his paws and his breast. At
length he begins to be fidgety. He searches out new resting-places; but
he very soon changes them for others. He takes again to his own bed; but
he is continually shifting his posture. He begins to gaze strangely
about him as he lies on his bed. His countenance is clouded and
suspicious. He comes to one and another of the family and he fixes on
them a steadfast gaze as if he would read their very thoughts. "I feel
strangely ill," he seems to say: "have you anything to do with it? or
you? or you?" Has not a dog mind enough for this? If we have observed a
rabid dog at the commencement of the disease, we have seen this to the
very life.

There is a species of dog--the small French poodle--the essence of whose
character and constitution is fidgetiness or perpetual motion.

If this dog has been bitten, and rabies is about to establish itself, he
is the most irritative restless being that can be conceived of; starting
convulsively at the slightest sound; disposing of his bed in every
direction, seeking out one retreat after another in order to rest his
wearied frame, but quiet only for a moment in any one, and the motion of
his limbs frequently stimulating chorea and even epilepsy.

A peculiar delirium is an early symptom, and one that will never
deceive. A young man had been bitten by one of his dogs; I was requested
to meet a medical gentleman on the subject: I was a little behind my
time; as I entered the room I found the dog eagerly devouring a pan of
sopped bread. "There is no madness here," said the gentleman. He had
scarcely spoken, when in a moment the dog quitted the sop, and, with a
furious bark sprung against the wall as if he would seize some imaginary
object that he fancied was there. "Did you see that?" was my reply.
"What do you think of it?" "I see nothing in it," was his retort: "the
dog heard some noise on the other side of the wall." At my serious
urging, however, he consented to excise the part. I procured a poor
worthless cur, and got him bitten by this dog, and carried the disease
from this dog to the third victim: they all became rabid one after the
other, and there my experiment ended. The serious matter under
consideration, perhaps, justified me in going so far as I did.

This kind of delirium is of frequent occurrence in the human patient.
The account given by Dr. Bardsley of one of his patients is very
appropriate to on profit purpose:

"I observed that he frequently fixed his eyes with horror and affright
on some ideal object, and then, with a sudden and violent emotion,
buried his head beneath the bed-clothes. The next time I saw him
repeat this action, I was induced to inquire into the cause of his
terror. He asked whether I had not heard howlings and scratchings. On
being answered in the negative, he suddenly threw himself on his
knees, extending his arms in a defensive posture, and forcibly threw
back his head and body. The muscles of the face were agitated by
various spasmodic contractions; his eye-balls glazed, and seemed ready
to start from their sockets; and, at the moment, when crying out in an
agonizing tone, 'Do you not see that black dog?' his countenance and
attitude exhibited the most dreadful picture of complicated horror,
distress, and rage that words can describe or imagination paint."

I have again and again seen the rabid dog start up after a momentary
quietude, with unmingled ferocity depicted on his countenance, and
plunge with a savage howl to the end of his chain. At other times he
would stop and watch the nails in the partition of the stable in which
he was confined, and fancying them to move he would dart at them, and
occasionally sadly bruise and injure himself from being no longer able
to measure the distance of the object. In one of his sudden fits of
violence a rabid dog strangled the Cardinal Crescence, the Legate of the
Pope, at the Council of Trent in 1532.

M. Magendie has often injected into the veins of an hydrophobous dog as
much as five grains of opium without producing any effect; while a
single grain given to the healthy dog would suffice to send him almost
to sleep.

One of Mr. Babington's patients thought that there was a cloud of flies
about him. "Why do you not kill those flies!" he would cry; and then he
would strike at them with his hand, and shrink under the bed-clothes, in
the most dreadful fear.

There is also in the human being a peculiarity in this delirium which
seems to distinguish it from every other kind of mental aberration.

"The patient," in Mr. Lawrence's language, "is pursued by a thousand
phantoms that intrude themselves upon his mind; he holds conversation
with imaginary persons; he fancies himself surrounded with
difficulties, and in the greatest distress. These thoughts seem to
pass through his mind with wonderful rapidity, and to keep him in a
state of the greatest distress, unless he is quickly spoken to or
addressed by his name, and, then, in a moment the charm is broken;
every phantom of imagination disappears, and at once he begins to talk
as calmly and as connectedly as in perfect health."

So it is with the dog, whether he is watching the motes that are
floating in the air, or the insects that are annoying him on the walls,
or the foes that he fancies are threatening him on every side--one word
recalls him in a moment. Dispersed by the magic influence of his
master's voice, every object of terror disappears, and he crawls towards
him with the same peculiar expression of attachment that used to
characterize him.

Then comes a moment's pause--a moment of actual vacuity--the eye slowly
closes, the head droops, and he seems as if his fore feet were giving
way, and he would fall: but he springs up again, every object of terror
once more surrounds him--he gazes wildly around--he snaps--he barks, and
he rushes to the extent of his chain, prepared to meet his imaginary
foe.

The expression of the countenance of the dog undergoes a considerable
change, principally dependent on the previous disposition of the animal.
If he was naturally of an affectionate disposition, there will be an
anxious, inquiring countenance, eloquent, beyond the power of resisting
its influence. It is made up of strange suppositions as to the nature of
the depression of mind under which he labours, mingled with some passing
doubts, and they are but passing, as to the concern which the master has
in the affair; but, most of all, there is an affectionate and confiding
appeal for relief. At the same time we observe some strange fancy,
evidently passing through his mind, unalloyed, however, by the slightest
portion of ferocity.

In the countenance of the naturally savage brute, or him that has been
trained to be savage, there is indeed a fearful change; sometimes the
conjunctiva is highly injected; at other times it is scarcely affected,
hut the eyes have an unusually bright and dazzling appearance. They are
like two balls of fire, and there is a peculiar transparency of the
hyaloid membrane, or injection of that of the retina.

A very early symptom of rabies in the dog, is an extreme degree of
restlessness. Frequently, he is almost invariably wandering about,
shifting from corner to corner, or continually rising up and lying down,
changing his posture in every possible way, disposing of his bed with
his paws, shaking it with his mouth, bringing it to a heap, on which he
carefully lays his chest, or rather the pit of his stomach, and then
rising up and bundling every portion of it out of the kennel. If he is
put into a closed basket, he will not be still for an instant, but turn
round and round without ceasing. If he is at liberty, he will seem to
imagine that something is lost, and he will eagerly search round the
room, and particularly every corner of it, with strange violence and
indecision.

In a very great portion of cases of hydrophobia in the human being,
there is, as a precursory symptom, uneasiness, pain, or itching of the
bitten part. A red line may also be traced up the limb, in the direction
of the lymphatics. In a few cases the wound opens afresh.

The poison is now beginning fatally to act on the tissue, on which it
had previously lain harmless. When the conversation has turned on this
subject, long after the bitten part has been excised, pain has darted
along the limb. I have been bitten much oftener than I liked, by dogs
decidedly rabid, but, proper means being taken, I have escaped; and yet
often, when I have been over-fatigued, or a little out of temper, some
of the old sores have itched and throbbed, and actually become red and
swollen.

The dog appears to suffer a great deal of pain in the ear in common
canker. He will be almost incessantly scratching it, crying piteously
while thus employed. The ear is, oftener than any other part, bitten by
the rabid dog, and, when a wound in the ear, inflicted by a rabid dog,
begins to become painful, the agony appears to be of the intensest kind.
The dog rubs his ear against every projecting body, he scratches it
might and main, and tumbles over and over while he is thus employed.

The young practitioner should be on his guard there. Is this dreadful
itching a thing of yesterday, or, has the dog been subject to canker,
increasing for a considerable period. Canker both internal and external
is a disease of slow growth, and must have been long neglected before it
will torment the patient in the manner that I have described. The
question as to the length of time that an animal has thus suffered will
usually be a sufficient guide.

The mode in which he expresses his torture will serve as another
direction. He will often scratch violently enough when he has canker,
but he will not roll over and over like a football except he is rabid.
If there is very considerable inflammation of the lining membrane of the
ear, and engorgement and ulceration of it, this is the effect of canker;
but if there is only a slight redness of the membrane, or no redness at
all, and yet the dog is incessantly and violently scratching himself, it
is too likely that rabies is at hand.

In the early stage of rabies, the attachment of the dog towards his
owner seems to be rapidly increased, and the expression of that feeling.
He is employed, almost without ceasing, licking the hands, or face, or
any part he can get at. Females, and men too, are occasionally apt to
permit the dog, when in health, to indulge this filthy and very
dangerous habit with regard to them. The virus, generated under the
influence of rabies, is occasionally deposited on a wounded or abraded
surface, and in process of time produces a similar disease in the person
that has been so inoculated by it. Therefore it is that the surgeon so
anxiously inquires of the person that has been bitten, and of all those
to whom the dog has had access, "Has he been accustomed to lick you?
have you any sore places about you that can by possibility have been
licked by him?" If there are, the person is in fully as much danger as
if he had been bitten, and it is quite as necessary to destroy the part
with which the virus may have come in contact. A lady once lost her life
by suffering her dog to lick a pimple on her chin.

There is a beautiful species of dog, often the inhabitant of the
gentleman's stable--the Dalmatian or coach dog. He has, perhaps, less
affection for the human species than any other dog, except the greyhound
and the bull-dog; he has less sagacity than most others, and certainly
less courage. He is attached to the stable; he is the friend of the
horse; they live under the same roof; they share the same bed; and, when
the horse is summoned to his work, the dog accompanies every step. They
are certainly beautiful dogs, and it is pleasing to see the thousand
expressions of friendship between them and the horse; but, in their
continual excursions through the streets, they are exposed to some
danger, and particularly to that of being bitten by rabid dogs. It is a
fearful business when this takes place. The coachman probably did not
see the affray; no suspicion has been excited. The horse rubs his muzzle
to the dog, and the dog licks the face of the horse, and in a great
number of cases the disease is communicated from the one to the other.
The dog in process of time dies, the horse does not long survive, and,
frequently too, the coachman shares their fate. I have known at least
twenty horses destroyed in this way.

A depraved appetite is a frequent attendant on rabies in the dog. He
refuses his usual food; he frequently turns from it with an evident
expression of disgust; at other times, he seizes it with greater or less
avidity, and then drops it, sometimes from disgust, at other times
because he is unable to complete the mastication of it. This palsy of
the organs of mastication, and dropping of the food, after it has been
partly chewed, is a symptom on which implicit confidence may be placed.

Some dogs vomit once or twice in the early period of the disease: when
this happens, they never return to the natural food of the dog, but are
eager for everything that is filthy and horrible. The natural appetite
generally fails entirely, and to it succeeds a strangely depraved one.
The dog usually occupies himself with gathering every little bit of
thread, and it is curious to observe with what eagerness and method he
sets to work, and how completely he effects his object. He then attacks
every kind of dirt and filth, horse-dung, his own dung, and human
excrement. Some breeds of spaniels are very filthy feeders without its
being connected with disease, but the rabid dog eagerly selects the
excrement of the horse, and his own. Some considerable care, however,
must be exercised here. At the period of dentition, and likewise at the
commencement of the sexual affection, the stomach of the dog, and
particularly that of the bitch, sympathises with, or shares in, the
irritability of the gums, and of the constitution generally, and there
is a considerably perverted appetite. The dog also feels the same
propensity that influences the child, that of taking hard substances
into the mouth, and seemingly trying to masticate them. Their pressure
on the gums facilitates the passage of the new teeth. A young dog will,
therefore, be observed gathering up hard substances, and, if he should
chance to die, a not inconsiderable collection of them is sometimes
found in the stomach. They are, however, of a peculiar character; they
consist of small pieces of bone, slick, and coal.

The contents of the stomach of the rabid dog, are often, or generally,
of a most filthy description. Some hair or straw is usually found, but
the greater part is composed of horse-dung, or of his own dung, and it
may be received as a certainly, that if he is found deliberately
devouring it, he is rabid.

Some very important conclusions may be drawn from the appearance and
character of the urine. The dog, and at particular times when he is more
than usually salacious, may, and does diligently search the urining
places; he may even, at those periods, be seen to lick the spot which
another has just wetted; but, if a peculiar eagerness accompanies this
strange employment, if, in the parlour, which is rarely disgraced by
this evacuation, every corner is perseveringly examined, and licked with
unwearied and unceasing industry, that dog cannot be too carefully
watched, there is great danger about him; he may, without any other
symptom, be pronounced to be decidedly rabid. I never knew a single
mistake about this.

Much has been said of the profuse discharge of saliva from the mouth of
the rabid dog. It is an undoubted fact that, in this disease, all the
glands concerned in the secretion of saliva, become increased in bulk
and vascularity. The sublingual glands wear an evident character of
inflammation; but it never equals the increased discharge that
accompanies epilepsy, or nausea. The frothy spume at the corners of the
mouth, is not for a moment to be compared with that which is evident
enough in both of these affections. It is a symptom of short duration,
and seldom lasts longer than twelve hours. The stories that are told of
the mad dog covered with froth, are altogether fabulous. The dog
recovering from, or attacked by a fit, may be seen in this state; but
not the rabid dog. Fits are often mistaken for rabies, and hence the
delusion.

The increased secretion of saliva soon passes away. It lessens in
quantity; it becomes thicker, viscid, adhesive, and glutinous. It clings
to the corners of the mouth, and probably more annoyingly so to the
membrane of the fauces. The human being is sadly distressed by it, he
forces it out with the greatest violence, or utters the falsely supposed
bark of a dog, in his attempts to force it from his mouth. This symptom
occurs in the human being, when the disease is fully established, or at
a late period of it. The dog furiously attempts to detach it with his
paws.

It is an early symptom in the dog, and it can scarcely be mistaken in
him. When he is fighting with his paws at the corners of his mouth, let
no one suppose that a bone is sticking between the poor fellow's teeth;
nor should any useless and dangerous effort be made to relieve him. If
all this uneasiness arose from a bone in the mouth, the mouth would
continue permanently open instead of closing when the animal for a
moment discontinues his efforts. If after a while he loses his balance
and tumbles over, there can be no longer any mistake. It is the saliva
becoming more and more glutinous, irritating the fauces and threatening
suffocation.

To this naturally and rapidly succeeds an insatiable thirst. The dog
that still has full power over the muscles of his jaws continues lo lap.
He knows not when to cease, while the poor fellow labouring under the
dumb madness, presently to be described, and whose jaw and tongue are
paralysed, plunges his muzzle into the water-dish to his very eyes, in
order that he may get one drop of water into the back part of his mouth
to moisten and to cool his dry and parched fauces. Hence, instead of
this disease being always characterised by the dread of water in the
dog, it is marked by a thirst often perfectly unquenchable. Twenty years
ago, this assertion would have been peremptorily denied. Even at the
present day we occasionally meet with those who ought to know better,
and who will not believe that the dog which fairly, or perhaps eagerly,
drinks, can be rabid.

January 22d, 1815.--A Newfoundland dog belonging to a gentleman in
Piccadilly was supposed to have swallowed a penny-piece on the 20th. On
the evening of that day he was dull, refused his food, and would not
follow his master.

21st. He became restless and pouting, and continually shifting his
position. He would not eat nor would he drink water, but followed his
mistress into her bed-room, which he had never done before, and eagerly
lapped the urine from her chamber-pot. He was afterwards seen lapping
his own urine. His restlessness and panting increased, He would neither
eat nor drink, and made two or three attempts to vomit.

22d. He was brought to me this evening. His eyes were wild, the
conjunctiva considerably inflamed, and he panted quickly and violently.
There was a considerable flow of saliva from the corners of his mouth.
He was extremely restless and did not remain in one position half a
minute. There was an occasional convulsive nodding motion of the head.
The eyes were wandering, and evidently following some imaginary object;
but he was quickly recalled from his delirium by my voice or that of his
master. In a few moments, however, he was wandering again. He had
previously been under my care, and immediately recognised me and offered
me his paw. His bark was changed and had a slight mixture of the howl,
and there was a husky choking noise in the throat.