Chapter VII — Rabies

We are now arrived at one of the most important subjects in veterinary pathology. In other cases the comfort and the existence of our quadruped patients are alone or chiefly involved, but here the lives of our employers, and our own too, are at stake, and may be easily, and too often are, compromised. Here also, however other portions of the chain may be overlooked or denied, we have the link which most of all connects the veterinary surgeon with the practitioner of human medicine; or, rather, here is the circumscribed but valued spot where the veterinary surgeon has the vantage-ground.

In describing the nature, and cause and treatment of rabies, it will be most natural to take the animal in which it oftenest appears, by which it is most frequently propagated; the time at which the danger commences, and the usual period before the death of the patient.

Some years ago a dog, naturally ferocious, bit a child at Lisson Grove. The child, to all appearance previously well, died on the third day, and an inquest was to be held on the body in the evening. The Coroner ordered the dog to be sent to me for examination The animal was, contrary to his usual habit, perfectly tractable. This will appear to be of some importance hereafter. I examined him carefully. No suspicious circumstance could be found about him. There was no appearance of rabies. In the mean time the inquest took place, and the corpse of the child was carefully examined. One medical gentleman thought that there were some suspicious appearances about the stomach, and another believed that there was congestion of the brain.

The owner of the dog begged that the animal might not be taken from him, but might accompany him home. He took him home and destroyed him that no experiments might be made.

With great difficulty we procured the carcass, and from some inflammatory appearances about the tongue and the stomach, and the presence of a small portion of indigestible matter in the stomach, we were unanimously of opinion that the dog was rabid.

I do not mean to say that the child died hydrophobous, or that its death was accelerated by the nascent disease existing in the dog. There was probably some nervous affection that hastened the death of the infant, and the dog bit the child at the very period when the malady first began to develop itself. On the following day there were morbid lesions enough to prove beyond doubt that he was rabid.

This case is introduced because I used afterwards to accompany every examination of supposed or doubtful rabies with greater caution than I probably had previously used.

Related: Dog Health.