The Dog

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I immediately declared that he was rabid, and with some reluctance on
the part of his master, he was left with me.

23d, 8 A. M. The breathing was less quick and laborious. The spasm of
the head was no longer visible. The flow of saliva had stopped and there
was less delirium. The jaw began to be dependent: the rattling, choking
noise in his throat louder. He carried straw about in his mouth. He
picked up some pieces of old leather that lay within his reach and
carefully concealed them under his bed. Two minutes afterwards he would
take them out again, and look at them, and once more hide them. He
frequently voided his urine in small quantities, but no longer lapped
it. A little dog was lowered into the den, but he took no notice of it.

10 P. M. Every symptom of fever returned with increased violence. He
panted very much, and did not remain in the same posture two seconds. He
was continually running to the end of his chain and attempting to bite.
He was eagerly and wildly watching some imaginary object. His voice was
hoarser--more of the howl mixing with it. The lips were distorted, and
the tongue very black. He was evidently getting weaker. After two or
three attempts to escape, he would sit down for a second, and then rise
and plunge to the end of his chain. He drank frequently, yet but little
at a time, and that without difficulty or spasm.

12 P. M. The thirst strangely increased. He had drunk or spilled full
three quarts of water. There was a peculiar eagerness in his manner. He
plunged his nose to the very bottom of his pan, and then snapped at the
bubbles which he raised. No spasm followed the drinking. He took two or
three pieces from my hand, but immediately dropped them from want of
power to hold them. Yet he was able for a moment suddenly to close his
jaws. When not drinking he was barking with a harsh sound, and
frequently started suddenly, watching, and catching at some imaginary
object.

24th, A. M. He was more furious, yet weaker. The thirst was insatiable.
He was otherwise diligently employed in shattering and tearing
everything within his reach. He died about three o'clock.

It is impossible to say what was the origin of this disease in him. It
is not connected with any degree or variation of temperature, or any
particular state of the atmosphere. It is certainly more frequent in the
summer or the beginning of autumn than in the winter or spring, because
it is a highly nervous and febrile disease, and the degree of fever, and
irritability, and ferocity, and consequent mischief are augmented by
increase of temperature. In the great majority of cases, the inoculation
can be distinctly proved. In very few can the possibility be denied. The
injury is inflicted in an instant. There is no contest, and before the
injured party can prepare to retaliate, the rabid dog is far away.

It can easily be believed that when a favourite dog has, but for a
moment, lagged behind, he may be bitten without the owner's knowledge or
suspicion. A spaniel belonging to a lady became rabid. The dog was her
companion in her grounds at her country residence, and it was rarely out
of her sight except for a few minutes in the morning, when the servant
took it out. She was not conscious of its having been bitten, and the
servant stoutly denied it. The animal died. A few weeks afterwards the
footman was taken ill. He was hydrophobous. In one of his intervals of
comparative quietude he confessed that, one morning, his charge had been
attacked and rolled over by another dog; that there was no appearance of
its having been bitten, but that it had been made sadly dirty, and he
had washed it before he suffered it again to go into the drawing-room.
The dog that attacked it must have been rabid, and some of his saliva
must have remained about the coat of the spaniel, by which the servant
was fatally inoculated.

Another case of this fearful disease must not be passed over. A dog that
had been docile and attached to his master and mistress, was missing one
morning, and came home in the evening almost covered with dirt. He slunk
to his basket, and would pay no attention to any one. His owners thought
it rather strange, and I was sent for in the morning. He was lying on
the lap of his mistress, but was frequently shifting his posture, and
every now and then he started, as if he heard some strange sound. I
immediately told them what was the matter, and besought them to place
him in another and secure room. He had been licking both their hands. I
was compelled to tell them at once what was the nature of the case, and
besought them to send at once for their surgeon. They were perfectly
angry at my nonsense, as they called it, and I took my leave, but went
immediately to their medical man, and told him what was the real state
of the case. He called, as it were accidentally, a little while
afterwards, and I was not far behind him. The surgeon did his duty, and
they escaped.

In May, 1820, I attended on a bitch at Pimlico. She had snapped at the
owner, bitten the man-servant and several dogs, was eagerly watching
imaginary objects, and had the peculiar rabid howl. I offered her water.
She started back with a strange expression of horror, and fell into
violent convulsions that lasted about a minute. This was repeated a
little while afterwards, and with the same result. She was destroyed.

The horrible spasms of the human being at the sight of, or the attempt
to swallow, fluids occur sufficiently often to prove the identity of the
disease in the biped and the quadruped; but not in one in fifty cases is
there, in the dog, the slightest reluctance to liquids, or difficulty in
swallowing them.

In almost every case in which the dog utters any sound during the
disease, there is a manifest change of voice. In the dog labouring under
ferocious madness, it is perfectly characteristic. There is no other
sound that it resembles. The animal is generally standing, or
occasionally sitting, when the singular sound is heard. The muzzle is
always elevated. The commencement is that of a perfect bark, ending
abruptly and very singularly, in a howl, a fifth, sixth, or eighth
higher than at the commencement. Dogs are often enough heard howling,
but in this case it is the perfect bark, and the perfect howl rapidly
succeeding to the bark.

Every sound uttered by the rabid dog is more or less changed. The
huntsman, who knows the voice of every dog in his pack, occasionally
hears a strange challenge. He immediately finds out that dog, and puts
him, as quickly as possible, under confinement. Two or three days may
pass over, and there is not another suspicious circumstance about the
animal; still he keeps him under quarantine, for long experience has
taught him to listen to that warning. At length the disease is manifest
in its most fearful form.

There is another partial change of voice, to which the ear of the
practitioner will, by degrees, become habituated, and which will
indicate a change in the state of the animal quite as dangerous as the
dismal howl; I mean when there is a hoarse inward bark, with a slight
but characteristic elevation of the tone. In other cases, after two or
three distinct barks, will come the peculiar one mingled with the howl.
Both of them will terminate fatally, and in both of them the rabid howl
cannot possibly be mistaken.

There is a singular brightness in the eye of the rabid dog, but it does
not last more than two or three days. It then becomes dull and wasted; a
cloudiness steals over the conjunctiva, which changes to a yellow tinge,
and then to a dark green, indicative of ulceration deeply seated within
the eye. In eight and forty hours from the first clouding of the eye, it
becomes one disorganised mass.

There is in the rabid dog a strange embarrassment of general
sensibility--a seemingly total loss of feeling.

Absence of pain in the bitten part is an almost invariable accompaniment
of rabies. I have known a dog set to work, and gnaw and tear the flesh
completely away from his legs and feet. At other times the penis is
perfectly demolished from the very base. Ellis in his "Shepherd's Sure
Guide," asserts, that, however severely a mad dog is beaten, a cry is
never forced from him. I am certain of the truth of this, for I have
again and again failed in extracting that cry. Ellis tells that at the
kennel at Goddesden, some of the grooms heated a poker red hot, and
holding it near the mad hound's mouth, he most greedily seized it, and
kept it until the mouth was most dreadfully burned.

In the great majority of cases of furious madness, and in almost every
case of dumb madness, there is evident affection of the lumbar portion
of the spinal cord. There is a staggering gait, not indicative of
general weakness, but referable to the hind quarters alone, and
indicating an affection of the lumbar motor nerve. In a few cases it
approaches more to a general paralytic affection.

In the very earliest period of rabies, the person accustomed to dogs
will detect the existence of the disease.

The animal follows the flight, as has been already stated, of various
imaginary objects. I have often watched the changing countenance of the
rabid dog when he has been lost to every surrounding object. I have seen
the brightening countenance and the wagging tail as some pleasing vision
has passed before him; but, oftener has the countenance indicated the
mingled dislike and fear with which the intruder was regarded. As soon
as the phantom came within the proper distance he darted on it with true
rabid violence.

A spaniel, seemingly at play, snapped, in the morning, at the feet of
several persons. In the evening he bit his master, his master's friend,
and another dog. The old habits of obedience and affection then
returned. His master, most strangely, did not suspect the truth, and
brought the animal to me to be examined. The animal was, as I had often
seen him, perfectly docile and eager to be caressed. At my suggestion,
or rather entreaty, he was left with me. On the following morning the
disease was plain enough, and on the following day he died. A
post-mortem examination took place, and proved that he was unequivocally
rabid.

A lady would nurse her dog, after I had declared it to be rabid, and
when he was dangerous to every one but herself, and even to her from the
saliva which he plentifully scattered about. At length he darted at
every one that entered the room, until a footman keeping the animal at
bay with the poker, the husband of the lady dragged her from the room.
The noise that the dog made was then terrific, and he almost gnawed his
way through the door. At midnight his violence nearly ceased, and the
door was partially opened. He was staggering and falling about, with
every limb violently agitated. At the entreaty of the lady, a servant
ventured in to make a kind of bed for him. The dog suddenly darted at
him, and dropped and died.

A terrier, ten years old, had been ill, and refused all food for three
days. On the fourth day he bit a cat of which he had been unusually
fond, and he likewise bit three dogs. I was requested to see him. I
found him loose in the kitchen, and at first refused to go in, but,
after observing him for a minute or two, I thought that I might venture.
He had a peculiarly wild and eager look, and turned sharply round at the
least noise. He often watched the flight of some imaginary object, and
pursued with the utmost fury every fly that he saw. He searchingly
sniffed about the room, and examined my legs with an eagerness that made
me absolutely tremble. His quarrel with the cat had been made up, and
when he was not otherwise employed he was eagerly licking her and her
kittens. In the excess or derangement of his fondness, he fairly rolled
them from one end of the kitchen to another. With difficulty I induced
his master to permit me to destroy him.

It is not every dog, that in the most aggravated state of the disease
shows a disposition to bite. The finest Newfoundland dog that I ever saw
became rabid. He had been bitten by a cur, and was supposed to have been
thoroughly examined in the country. No wound, however, was found: the
circumstance was almost forgotten, and he came up to the metropolis with
his master. He became dull, disinclined to play, and refused all food.
He was continually watching imaginary objects, but he did not snap at
them. There was no howl, nor any disposition to bite. He offered himself
to be caressed, and he was not satisfied except he was shaken by the
paw. On the second day I saw him. He watched every passing object with
peculiar anxiety, and followed with deep attention the motions of a
horse, his old acquaintance; but he made no effort to escape, nor
evinced any disposition to do mischief. I went to him, and patted and
coaxed him, and he told me as plainly as looks and actions, and a
somewhat deepened whine could express it, how much he was gratified. I
saw him on the third day. He was evidently dying. He could not crawl
even to the door of his temporary kennel; but he pushed forward his paw
a little way, and, as I shook it, I felt the tetanic muscular action
which accompanies the departure of life.

On the other hand there are rabid dogs whose ferocity knows no bounds.
If they are threatened with a stick, they fly at, and seize it, and
furiously shake it. They are incessantly employed in darting to the end
of their chain, and attempting to crush it with their teeth, and tearing
to pieces their kennel, or the wood work that is within their reach.
They are regardless of pain. The canine teeth, the incisor teeth are
torn away; yet, unwearied and insensible to suffering, they continue
their efforts to escape. A dog was chained near a kitchen fire. He was
incessant in his endeavours to escape, and, when he found that he could
not effect it, he seized, in his impotent rage, the burning coals as
they fell, and crushed them with his teeth.

If by chance a dog in this state effects his escape, he wanders over the
country bent on destruction. He attacks both the quadruped and the
biped. He seeks the village street, or the more crowded one of the town,
and he suffers no dog to escape him. The horse is his frequent prey, and
the human being is not always safe from his attack. A rabid dog running
down Park-lane, in 1825, bit no fewer than five horses, and fully as
many dogs. He was seen to steal treacherously upon some of his victims,
and inflict the fatal wound. Sometimes he seeks the more distant
pasturage. He gets among the sheep, and more than forty have been
fatally inoculated in one night. A rabid dog attacked a herd of cows,
and five-and-twenty of them fell victims. In July, 1813, a mad dog broke
into the menagerie of the Duchess of York, at Oatlands, and although the
palisades that divided the different compartments of the menagerie were
full six feet in height, and difficult, or apparently almost impossible
to climb, he was found asleep in one of them, and it was clearly
ascertained that he had bitten at least ten of the dogs.

At length the rabid dog becomes completely exhausted, and slowly reels
along the road with his tail depressed, seemingly half unconscious of
surrounding objects. His open mouth, and protruding and blackened
tongue, and rolling gait sufficiently characterise him. He creeps into
some sheltered place and then he sleeps twelve hours or more. It is
dangerous to disturb his slumbers, for his desire to do mischief
immediately returns, and the slightest touch, or attempt to caress him,
is repaid by a fatal wound. This should be a caution never to meddle
with a sleeping dog in a way-side house, and, indeed, never to disturb
him anywhere.

In an early period of the disease in some dogs, and in others when the
strength of the animal is nearly worn away, a peculiar paralysis of the
muscles of the tongue and jaws is seen. The mouth is partially open, and
the tongue protruding. In some cases the dog is able to close his mouth
by a sudden and violent effort, and is as ferocious and as dangerous as
one the muscles of whose face are unaffected. At other times the palsy
is complete, and the animal is unable to close his mouth or retract his
tongue. These latter cases, however, are rare.

A dog must not be immediately condemned because he has this open mouth
and fixed jaw. Bones constitute a frequent and a considerable portion of
the food of dogs. In the eagerness with which these bones are crushed,
spicula or large pieces of them become wedged between the molar teeth,
and form an inseparable obstacle to the closing of the teeth. The tongue
partially protrudes. There is a constant discharge of saliva from the
mouth, far greater than when the true paralysis exists. The dog is
continually fighting at the corners of his mouth, and the countenance is
expressive of intense anxiety, although not of the same irritable
character as in rabies.

I was once requested to meet a medical gentleman in consultation
respecting a supposed case of rabies. There was protrusion and
discoloration of the tongue, and fighting at the corners of the mouth,
and intense anxiety of countenance. He had been in this state for
four-and-twenty hours. This was a case in which I should possibly have
been deceived had it been the first dog that I had seen with dumb
madness. After having tested a little the ferocity or manageableness of
the animal, I passed my hand along the outside of the jaws, and felt a
bone wedged between two of the grinders. The forceps soon set all right
with him.

It is time to inquire more strictly into the post-mortem appearances of
rabies in the dog.

In dumb madness the unfailing accompaniment is, to a greater or less
degree, paralysis of the muscles of the lower jaw, and the tongue is
discoloured and swollen, and hanging from the mouth; more blood than
usual also is deposited in the anterior and inferior portion of it. Its
colour varies from a dark red to a dingy purple, or almost black. In
ferocious madness it is usually torn and bruised, or it is discoloured
by the dirt and filth with which it has been brought into contact, and,
not unfrequently, its anterior portion is coated with some disgusting
matter. The papillae, or small projections on the back of the tongue,
are elongated and widened, and their mucous covering evidently reddened.
The orifices of the glands of the tongue are frequently enlarged,
particularly as they run their course along the froenum of the tongue.

The fauces, situated at the posterior part of the mouth, generally
exhibit traces of inflammation. They appear in the majority of cases of
ferocious madness, and they are never deficient after dumb madness. They
are usually most intense either towards the palatine arch or the larynx.
Sometimes an inflammatory character is diffused through its whole
extent, but occasionally it is more or less intense towards one or both
of the terminations of the fauces, while the intermediate portion
retains nearly its healthy hue.

There is one circumstance of not unfrequent occurrence, which will at
once decide the case--the presence of indigestible matter, probably
small in quantity, in the back part of the mouth. This speaks volumes as
to the depraved appetite of the patient, and the loss of power in the
muscles of the pharynx.

Little will depend on the tonsils of the throat. They occasionally
enlarge to more than double their usual size; but this is more in quiet
than in ferocious madness. The insatiable thirst of the rabid dog is
perhaps connected with this condition of them.

The epiglottis should be very carefully observed. It is more or less
injected in every case of rabies. Numerous vessels increase in size and
multiply round its edge, and there is considerable injection and
thickening.

Inflammation of the edges of the glottis, and particularly of the
membrane which covers its margin, is often seen, and accounts for the
harsh guttural breathing which frequently accompanies dumb madness. The
inflammatory blush of the larynx, though often existing in a very slight
degree, deserves considerable attention.

The appearances in the trachea are very uncertain. There is occasionally
the greatest intensity of inflammation through the whole of it; at other
times there is not the slightest appearance of it. There is the same
uncertainty with regard to the bronchial tubes and the lungs; but there
is no characteristic symptom or lesion in the lungs.

Great stress has been laid on the appearance of the heart; but,
generally speaking, in nine cases out of ten, the heart of the rabid dog
will exhibit no other symptoms of disease than an increased yet variable
deepness of colour in the lining membrane of the ventricles. No
dependence can be placed on any of the appearances of the oesophagus;
and, when they are at the worst, the inflammation occupies only a
portion of that tube.

With regard to the interior of the stomach, if the dog has been dead
only a few hours the true inflammatory blush will remain. If
four-and-twenty hours have elapsed, the bright red colour will have
changed to a darker red, or a violet or a brownish hue. In a few hours
after this, a process of corrosion will generally commence, and the
mucous membrane will be softened and rendered thinner, and, to a certain
extent, eaten through. The examiner, however, must not attribute that to
disease which is the natural process of the cession of life.

Much attention should be paid to the appearance of the stomach and its
contents. If it contains a strange mingled mass of hair, and hay, and
straw, and horse-dung, and earth, or portions of the bed on which the
dog had lain, we should seldom err if we affirmed that he died rabid;
for it is only under the influence of the depraved appetite of rabies
that such substances are devoured. It is not the presence of every kind
of extraneous substance that will be satisfactory: pieces of coal, or
wood, or even the filthiest matter, will not justify us in pronouncing
the animal to be rabid; it is that peculiarly mingled mass of straw, and
hair, and filth of various kinds, that must indicate the existence of
rabies.

When there are no solid indigesta, but a fluid composed principally of
vitiated bile or extravasated blood, there will be a strong indication
of the presence of rabies. When, also, there are in the duodenum and
jejunum small portions of indigesta, the detection of the least quantity
will be decisive. The remainder has been ejected by vomit; and inquiry
should be made of the nature of the matter that has been discharged.

The inflammation of rabies is of a peculiar character in the stomach. It
is generally confined to the summits of the folds of the stomach, or it
is most intense there. On the summits of the rugae there are effusions
of bloody matter, or spots of ecchymosis, presenting an appearance
almost like crushed black currants. There may be only a few of them; but
they are indications of the evil that has been effected.

From appearances that present themselves in the intestines, the bladder,
the blood-vessels, or the brain, no conclusion can be drawn; they are
simply indications of inflammation.

We now rapidly, and for a little while, retrace our steps. What is the
cause of this fatal disease, that has so long occupied our attention? It
is the saliva of a rabid animal received into a wound, or on an abraded
surface. In horses, cattle, sheep, swine, and the human being, it is
caused by inoculation alone; but, according to some persons, it is
produced spontaneously in other animals.

I will suppose that a wound by a rabid dog is inflicted. The virus is
deposited on or near its surface, and there it remains for a certain
indefinite period of time. The wound generally heals up kindly; in fact,
it differs in no respect from a similar wound inflicted by the teeth of
an animal in perfect health. Weeks and months, in some cases, pass on,
and there is nothing to indicate danger, until a degree of itching in
the cicatrix of the wound is felt. From its long-continued presence as a
foreign body, it may have rendered the tissue, or nervous fibre
connected with it, irritable and susceptible of impression, or it may
have attracted and assimilated to itself certain elements, and rabies is
produced.

The virus does not appear to have the same effect on every animal. Of
four dogs bitten by, or inoculated from, one that is rabid, three,
perhaps, would display every symptom of the disease. Of four human
beings, not more than one would become rabid. John Hunter used to say
not more than one in twenty; but that is probably erroneous. Cattle
appear to have a greater chance of escape, and sheep a still greater
chance.

The time of incubation is different in different animals. With regard to
the human being, there are various strange and contradictory stories.
Some have asserted that it has appeared on the very day on which the
bite was inflicted, or within two or three days of that time. Dr.
Bardsley, on the other hand, relates a case in which twelve years
elapsed between the bite and the disease. If the virus may lurk so long
as this in the constitution, it is a most lamentable affair. According
to one account, more than thirty years intervened. The usual time
extends from three weeks to six or seven months.