The Dog

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In the dog I have never seen a case in which plain and palpable rabies
occurred in less than fourteen days after the bite. The average time I
should calculate at five or six weeks. In three months I should consider
the animal as tolerably safe. I am, however, relating my own experience,
and have known but two instances in which the period much exceeded three
months. In one of these five months elapsed, and the other did not
become affected until after the expiration of the seventh month.

The quality and the quantity of the virus may have something to do with
this, and so may the predisposition in the bitten animal to be affected
by the poison. If it is connected with oestrum, the bitch will probably
become a disgusting, as well as dangerous animal; if with parturition,
there is a strange perversion of maternal affection--she is incessantly
and violently licking her young, continually shifting them from place to
place; and, in less than four-and-twenty hours, they will be destroyed
by the reckless manner in which they are treated. In both cases the
development of the disease seems to wait on the completion of her time
of pregnancy. It appears in the space of two months after the bite, if
her parturition is near at hand, or it is delayed for double that time,
if the period of labour is so far distant.

The duration of the disease is different in different animals. In man it
has run its course in twenty-four hours, and rarely exceeds seventy-two.
In the horse from three to four days; in the sheep and ox from five to
seven; and in the dog from four to six.

Of the real nature of the rabid virus, we know but little. It has never
been analysed, and it would be a difficult process to analyse it. It is
not diffused by the air, nor communicated by the breath, nor even by
actual contact, if the skin is sound. It must be received into a wound.
It must come in contact with some tissue or nervous fibre, and lie
dormant there for a considerable, but uncertain period. The absorbents
remove everything around; whatever else is useless, or would he
injurious, is taken away, but this strange substance is unchanged. It
does not enter into the circulation, for there it would undergo some
modification and change, or would be rejected. It lies for a time
absolutely dormant, and far longer than any other known poison; but, at
length, the tissue on which it has lain begins to render it somewhat
sensible, and assimilates to itself certain elements. The cicatrix
begins to be painful, and inflammation spreads around. The absorbents
are called into more powerful action; they begin to attack the virus
itself, and a portion of it is taken up, and carried into the
circulation, and acquires the property of assimilating other secretions
to its own nature, or it is determined to one of the secretions only; it
alters the character of that secretion, envenoms it, and gives it the
power of propagating the disease.

Something like this is the history of many animal poisons. In variola
and the vaccine disease the poison is determined to the skin, in
glanders to the Schneiderian membrane, and in farcy to the superficial
absorbents. Each in its turn becomes the depot of the poison. So it is
with the salivary glands of the rabid animal; in them it is formed, or
to them it is determined, and from them, and them alone, it is
communicated to other animals.

Professor Dick, in his valuable Manual of Veterinary Science, states
some peculiar views, and those highly interesting, respecting the
disease of rabies. He holds it to be essentially an inflammatory
affection, attacking peculiarly the mucous membrane of the nose, and
extending thence through the cribriform plate of the ethmoid bones to
the interior part of the brain, and so giving rise to a derangement of
the nervous system as a necessary consequence. This train of symptoms
constitutes mainly, if not wholly, the essence of an occasional epidemic
not unlike some forms of influenza or epizootic disease, and the bite of
a rabid animal is not always, to an animal so bitten, the exciting cause
of the disease, but merely an accidental concomitant in the prevailing
disorder. Also the disease hydrophobia, produced in man, is not always
the result of any poison introduced into his system, but merely the
melancholy, and often fatal result of panic fear, and of the disordered
slate of the imagination. Those who are acquainted with the effects of
sympathy, and imitation, and panic, in the production of nervous
disorders, will readily apprehend the meaning of the Professor.

Some of these diseases speedily run their course and exhaust themselves.
Cowpox and farcy, in many instances, have this character. Perhaps, to a
certain degree, this may be affirmed of all of them. I have seen cases,
which I could not mistake, in which the symptoms of rabies were one
after another developed. The dog was plainly and undeniably rabid, and I
had given him up as lost; but, after a certain period, the symptoms
began to be less distinct; they gradually disappeared, and the animal
returned to perfect health. This may have formed one ground of belief in
the power of certain medicines, and most assuredly it gives
encouragement to perseverance in the use of remedial measures.

It has then been proved, and I hope demonstratively, that rabies is
propagated by inoculation. It has also been established that although
every animal labouring under this disease is capable of communicating
it, yet, with very few exceptions, it can be traced to the bite of the
dog. It has still further been shown that the malady, generally appears
at some period between the third and seventh month from the time of
inoculation. At the expiration of the eighth month, the animal may be
considered to be safe; for there is only one acknowledged case on
record, in which the disease appeared in the dog after the seventh month
from the bite had passed.

Then it would appear that if a species of quarantine could be
established, and every dog confined separately for eight months, the
disease would be annihilated in our country, or could only reappear in
consequence of the importation of some infected animal. Such a course of
proceeding, however, could never be enforced either in the sporting
world or among the peasantry. Other measures, however, might be resorted
to in order to lessen the devastations of this malady; and that which
first presents itself to the mind as a powerful cause of rabies is the
number of useless and dangerous dogs that are kept in the country for
the most nefarious and, in the neighbourhood of considerable towns, the
most brutal purposes; without the slightest hesitation, I will affirm
that rabies is propagated, nineteen times out of twenty, by the cur and
the lurcher in the country, and the fighting-dog in towns.

A tax should be laid on every useless dog, and doubly or trebly heavier
than on the sporting-dog. No dog except the shepherd's should be exempt
from this tax, unless, perhaps, it is the truck-dog, and his owner
should be compelled to take out a license; to have his name in large
letters on his cart; and he should be heavily fined if the animal is
found loose in the streets, or if he is used for fighting.

The disease is rarely propagated by petted and house-dogs They are
little exposed to the danger of inoculation; yet, we pity, or almost
detest, the folly of those by whom their favourites are indulged, and
spoiled even more than their children.

We will now suppose that a person has had the misfortune to be bitten by
a rabid dog: what course is he to pursue? What preventive means are to
be adopted? Some persons, and of no mean standing in the medical world,
have recommended a ligature. The reply would be, that this ligature must
be worn during a very inconvenient and dangerous period of time. The
virus lies in the wound inert during many successive weeks and months.

Dr. Haygarth first suggested that a long-continued stream of warm water
should be poured upon the wound from the mouth of a kettle. He says that
the poison exists in a fluid form, and therefore we should suppose that
water would be its natural solvent. Dr. Massey adds to this, that if the
wound is small, it should be dilated, in order that the stream may
descend on the part on which the poison is deposited. We are far,
however, from being certain that this falling of water on the part, may
not by possibility force a portion of the virus farther into the
texture, or cause it to be entangled with other parts of the wound. [2]

There is a similar or stronger objection to the cupping-glass of Dr.
Barry. The virus, forced from the texture with which it lies in contact
by the rush of blood from the substance beneath, is too likely to
inoculate, or become entangled with, other parts of the wound.

There is great objection to suction of the wound; for, in addition to
this possible entanglement, the lips, or the mouth, may have been
abraded, and thus the danger considerably aggravated. There also remains
the undecided question as to the absorption of the virus through the
medium of a mucous surface.

Excision of the part is the mode of prevention usually adopted by the
human surgeon, and to a certain extent it is a judicious practice. If
the virus is not received into the circulation, but lies dormant in the
wound for a considerable time, the disease cannot supervene if the
inoculated part is destroyed.

This operation, however, demands greater skill and tact than is
generally supposed. It requires a determination fully to accomplish the
desired object; for every portion of the wound with which the tooth
could possibly have come into contact, must be removed. This is often
exceedingly difficult to accomplish, on account of the situation and
direction of the wound. The knife must not enter the wound, or it will
be likely to be itself empoisoned, and then the mischief and the danger
will be increased instead of removed. Dr. Massey was convinced of the
impropriety of this when he advised that,

"should the knife by chance enter the wound that had been made by the
dog's tooth, the operation should be recommenced with a clean knife,
otherwise the sound parts will become inoculated."

If the incision is made freely and properly round the wound, and does
not penetrate into it, yet the blood will follow the knife, and a
portion of it will enter into the wound caused by the dog, and will come
in contact with the virus, and will probably be contaminated, and will
then overflow the original wound, and will be received into the new
incision, and will carry with it the seeds of disease and death:
therefore it is, that scarcely a year passes without some lamentable
instances of the failure of incisions. It has occurred in the practice
of the most eminent surgeons, and seems scarcely or not all to impeach
the skill of the operator.

Aware of this, there are very few human practitioners who do not use the
caustic after the knife. Every portion of the new wound is submitted to
its influence. They do not consider the patient to be safe without this
second operation. But has the question never occurred to them, that if
the caustic is necessary to give security to the operation by incision,
the knife might have been spared, and the caustic alone used?

The veterinary surgeon, when operating on the horse, or cattle, or the
dog, frequently has recourse to the actual cautery. I could, perhaps,
excuse this practice, although I would not adopt it, in superficial
wounds; but I do not know the instrument that could be safely used in
deeper ones. If it were sufficiently small to adapt itself to the
tortuous course of little wounds, it would be cooled and inert before it
could have destroyed the lower portions of them. If it were of
sufficient substance long to retain the heat, it would make a large and
fearful chasm, and probably interfere with the future usefulness of the
animal. The result of the cases in which the cautery has been used
proves that in too many instances it is an inefficient protection. The
rabid dog in Park Lane has already been mentioned. He bit several horses
before he could be destroyed. Caustic was applied to one of them, and
the hot iron to the others. The first was saved, almost all the others
were lost. A similar case occurred last spring; the caustic was an
efficacious preventive; the cautery was perfectly useless. What caustic
then should be applied? Certainly not that to which the surgeon usually
has recourse--a liquid one. Certainly not one that speedily deliquesces;
for they are both unmanageable, and, what is a more important
consideration, they may hold in solution, and not decompose the poison,
and thus inoculate the whole of the wound. The application which
promises to be successful, is that of the 'lunar caustic'. It is
perfectly manageable, and, being sharpened to a point, may be applied
with certainty to every recess and sinuosity of the wound.

Potash and nitric acid form a caustic which will destroy the substances
with which they come in contact, but the combination of this caustic and
the animal fibre will be a soft or semi-fluid mass. In this the virus is
suspended, and with this it lies or may be precipitated upon the living
fibre beneath. Then there is danger of re-inoculation; and it would seem
that this fatal process is often accomplished. The eschar formed by the
lunar caustic is dry, hard, and insoluble. If the whole of the wound has
been fairly exposed to its action, an insoluble compound of animal fibre
and the metallic salt is produced, in which the virus is wrapped up, and
from which it cannot be separated. In a short time the dead matter
sloughs away, and the virus is thrown off with it.

Previous to applying the caustic it will sometimes be necessary to
enlarge the wound, in order that every part may be fairly got at; and
the eschar having sloughed off, it will always be prudent to apply the
caustic a second time, but more slightly, in order to destroy any part
that may not have received the full influence of the first operation, or
that, by possibility, might have been inoculated during the operation.

Mr. Smerdon, in the Medical and Physical Journal, March 1820, thus
reasons:

"All the morbid poisons that require to lie dormant a certain time
before their effects are manifested, pass into the system through the
medium of the absorbents," (we somewhat differ from Mr. Smerdon here,
but his reasoning is equally applicable to the nervous system,) "and
if the absorbents are excited, their action is increased. I am
satisfied that even in a venereal sore the application of a caustic,
instead of destroying the disease, causes its rapid extension. Then,"
asks he, "if the virus on a small venereal sore is rendered more
active by the caustic, is it not highly probable that the same law
holds good with respect to the poison of rabies?"

The sooner the caustic is applied the better; but I should not hesitate
to have recourse to it even after the constitution has become affected.
It is related in the Medico-Chirurgical Annals of Altenburg (Sept.
1821), that two men were bitten by a rabid dog. One became hydrophobous
and died; the other had evident symptoms of hydrophobia a few days
afterwards. A surgeon excised the bitten part, and the disease
disappeared. After a period of six days the symptoms returned. The wound
was examined; considerable fungus was found sprouting from its bottom.
This was extirpated. The hydrophobia symptoms were again removed, and
the man did well. This is a most instructive case.

In the Journal Pratique de Medecine Veterinaire, M. Damalix gives an
interesting account of the effect of a bite of a rabid dog on a horse.
On the 8th of July, 1828, a fowl-merchant, proceeding to the market of
Colmar, was attacked by a dog, who, after some fruitless efforts to get
into the cart, bit the horse on the left side of the face, and fled
precipitately. A veterinary surgeon was sent for, who applied the
cautery to the horse, gave him some populeum ointment, and bled him.
Everything appeared to go on well, and on the 16th the wounds were
healed.

On the 25th a great alteration took place. The horse was careless and
slow; he sometimes refused to go at all, and would not attend in the
least to the whip, which had never occurred before. In the evening the
wounds opened spontaneously, an ichorous and infectious pus run from
them; there was salivation and utter loss of appetite: strange fancies
seemed to possess him; he showed a desire to bite his master. The
veterinary surgeon might approach him with safety; but the moment his
owner or the children appeared, he darted at them, and would have torn
them in pieces. The disease now took on the appearance of acute
glanders; livid and fungous wounds broke out; the stable was saturated
with an infectious smell, the horse refused his food, or was unable to
eat. The mayor at last interfered, and the animal was destroyed. In the
Treatises on The Horse, Cattle, and Sheep, in former volumes, accounts
are fully given of this dreadful malady in these animals. It may not be
uninteresting to give a hasty sketch of it in some of the inferior
classes.

'Rabies in the Rabbit.'--I very much regret that I never instituted a
course of experiments on the production and treatment of rabies in this
animal. It would have been attended with little expense or danger, and
some important discoveries might have been made. Mr. Earle, in a case in
which he was much interested, inoculated two rabbits with the saliva of
a dog that had died rabid. They were punctured at the root of the ears.
One of the rabbits speedily became inflamed about the ears, and the ears
were paralysed in both rabbits. The head swelled very much, and
extensive inflammation took place around the part where the virus was
inserted. One of them died without exhibiting any of the usual symptoms
of the disease; the other, after a long convalescence, survived, and
eventually recovered the use of his ears. Mr. Earle very properly
doubted whether this was a case of rabies.

Dr. Capello describes, but in not so satisfactory a manner as could be
wished, a case of supposed rabies in one of these animals. A rabbit and
a dog lived together in a family. They were strange associates; but such
friendships are not unfrequent among animals. The dog became rabid, and
died. A man bitten by that dog became hydrophobous, and died. No one
dreamed of the rabbit being in danger, and he ran about the house as
usual; but, one day, he found his way to the chamber of the mistress of
the house, with a great deal of viscid saliva running from his mouth,
furiously attacked her, and left the marks of his violence on her leg.
He then ran into a neighbouring stable, and bit the hind-legs of a horse
several times. Finally, he retreated to a corner of the stable, and was
there found dead. Neither the lady nor the horse eventually suffered.

'Rabies in the Guinea-pig'.--A man suspected of being hydrophobous was
taken to the Middlesex Hospital. He was examined before several of the
medical students; one of whom, in order to make more sure of the affair,
inoculated a guinea-pig with the saliva taken from the man's mouth. The
guinea-pig had been usually very playful, and fond of being noticed;
but, on the eleventh day after this inoculation, he began to be dull and
sullen, retiring into his house, and hiding himself as much as he could
in a corner. On the following day he became out of temper, and even
ferocious in his way; he bit at everything that was presented to him,
gnawed his cage, and made the most determined efforts to escape. Once or
twice his violence induced convulsions of his whole frame; and they
might be produced at pleasure by dashing a little water at him. In the
course of the night following he died.

'Rabies in the Cat'.--Fortunately for us, this does not often occur; for
a mad cat is a truly ferocious animal. I have seen two cases, one of
them to my cost; yet, I am unable to give any satisfactory account of
the progress of the disease. The first stage seems to be one of
sullenness, and which would probably last to death; but from that
sullenness it is dangerous to rouse the animal. It probably would not,
except in the paroxysm of rage, attack any one; but during that paroxysm
it knows no fear, nor has its ferocity any bounds.

A cat, that had been the inhabitant of a nursery, and the playmate of
the children, had all at once become sullen and ill-tempered. It had
taken refuge in an upper room, and could not be coaxed from the corner
in which it had crouched. It was nearly dark when I went. I saw the
horrible glare of her eyes, but I could not see so much of her as I
wished, and I said that I would call again in the morning.

I found the patient, on the following day, precisely in the same
situation and the same attitude, crouched up in a corner, and ready to
spring. I was very much interested in the case; and as I wanted to study
the countenance of this demon, for she looked like one, I was foolishly,
inexcusably imprudent. I went on my hands and knees, and brought my face
nearly on a level with hers, and gazed on those glaring eyes, and that
horrible countenance, until I seemed to feel the deathly influence of a
spell stealing over me. I was not afraid, but every mental and bodily
power was in a manner suspended. My countenance, perhaps, alarmed her,
for she sprang on me, fastened herself on my face, and bit through both
my lips. She then darted down stairs, and, I believe, was never seen
again. I always have nitrate of silver in my pocket, even now I am never
without it; I washed myself, and applied the caustic with some severity
to the wound; and my medical adviser and valued friend, Mr. Millington,
punished me still more after I got home. My object was attained,
although at somewhat too much cost, for the expression of that brute's
countenance will never be forgotten.

The later symptoms of rabies in this animal, no one, perhaps, has had
the opportunity of observing: we witness only the sullenness and the
ferocity.

'Rabies in the Fowl'.--Dr. Ashburner and Mr. King inoculated a hen with
the saliva from a rabid cow. They made two incisions through the
integument, under the wings, and then well rubbed into these cuts the
foam taken from the cow's mouth. She was after this let loose among
other fowls in the poultry-yard. The incisions soon healed, and their
places could with difficulty be discovered. Ten weeks passed over, when
she was observed to refuse her food, and to run at the other fowls. She
had a strange wild appearance, and her eyes were blood-shot. Early on
the following morning her legs became contracted, so that she very soon
lost the power of standing upright. She remained sitting a long time,
with the legs rigid, refusing food and water, and appearing very
irritable when touched. She died in the evening, immediately after
drinking a large quantity of water which had been offered to her.

'Rabies in the Badger'.--Hufeland, in his valuable Journal of Practical
Medicine, relates a case of a rabid female badger attacking two boys.
She bit them both, but she fastened on the thigh of one of them, and was
destroyed in the act of sucking his blood. The poor fellow died
hydrophobous, but the other escaped. This fact, certainly, gives us no
idea of the general character of the disease in this animal; but it
speaks volumes as to its ferocity.

'Rabies in the Wolf'.--Rabies is ushered in by nearly the same symptoms,
and pursues the same course in the wolf us in the dog, with this
difference, which would be readily expected, that his ferocity and the
mischief which he accomplishes are much greater. The dog hunts out his
own species, and his fury is principally directed against them;
although, if he meets with a flock of sheep, or a herd of cattle, he
readily attacks them, and, perhaps, bites the greater part of them. The
dog, however, frequently turns out of his way to avoid the human being,
and seldom attacks him without provocation. The wolf, on the contrary,
although he commits fearful ravages among the sheep and cattle, searches
out the human being as his favorite prey. He conceals himself near the
entrance to the village, and steals upon and wounds every passenger that
he can get at. There are several accounts of more than twenty persons
having been bitten by one wolf; and there is a fearful history of
sixteen persons perishing from the bite of one of these animals. This is
in perfect agreement with the account which I have given of the
connexion between the previous temper and habits of the rabid dog, and
the mischief that he effects under the influence of this malady. The
wolf, as he wanders in the forest, regards the human being as his
persecutor and foe; and, in the paroxysm of rabid fury, he is most eager
to avenge himself on his natural enemy. Strange stories are told of the
arts to which he has recourse in order to accomplish his purpose. In the
great majority of cases he steals unawares upon his victim, and the
mischief is effected before the wood-cutter or the villager is conscious
of his danger.