But though it be well known that animals of the dog and cat kinds can propagate the disorder, it is not definitely settled whether it can be communicated by other animals. Some authorities declare that inoculation with the saliva of a rabid sheep fails to produce it in others of the flock, while others maintain that the disease can be communicated through inoculation. But as for some extraordinary cases, in which the disease is alleged to have been imparted to the human subject by the bites of birds or injuries done with the claws of animals, they are generally dismissed by modern writers with the inference that the complaint thus transmitted was not true hydrophobia or rabies. There is, however, a case on record where a young man was scratched on the big toe by a cat, and some months afterwards he was attacked with hydrophobia and died; but if the patient really succumbed to this disease, the only conceivable idea is this, that the cat's claw with which the scratch was made must have been wet with the animal's saliva.

Again, another question of considerable importance is whether hydrophobia, that is to say, rabies, can be communicated from one human being to another, or whether in man the disease is infectious or contagious. Now many attempts have been made in vain to communicate the distemper to several kinds of animals by inoculating them with the saliva of patients who had perished of the disease, but no infection was the consequence. Several dogs were inoculated with the saliva of a man in the convulsed stage of hydrophobia, but none of them afterwards took the distemper. Another experiment was tried by a very prominent medical man, who collected some of the frothy saliva the instant it was discharged from a patient's mouth who was labouring under the disorder. He then inserted some of this fluid into eight punctures made on the inside of a dog's four legs, yet six months after this inoculation the animal had not suffered the slightest inconvenience. A similar experiment was made on three dogs by another authority, and six months afterwards they also were unaffected.

Dr. Bezard published the following experiments: - Pieces of the flesh of a person who had died of hydrophobia were smeared with his saliva and given to a dog; another dog was suffered to eat the salivary glands, and a third the sides of a wound. In three other dogs incisions were made; the cut parts were then inoculated and sewed up. And not one of these six animals became affected with rabies.

It will therefore be seen from the preceding experiments that they only furnish negative results, but one to which I shall now advert tends to establish a contrary opinion. On the 19th of June 1813, in the Hotel - Dieu at Paris, Magendie and Breschet took some of the saliva of a man who died a few minutes afterwards of hydrophobia, and by means of a bit of rag they conveyed this saliva the short distance of twenty paces from the patient's bed and inoculated with it two healthy dogs. One of the dogs became rabid on the 27th July, and bit two others, one of which was attacked with complete rabies on the 26th of the following month. It is also remarked in the work from which I have collected these particulars that the foregoing is one of the best-authenticated experiments on record; for in addition to consideration of the talents and characters of the gentlemen who made the experiments, the facta were witnessed by numerous medical students; and notwithstanding the objections which have been urged against the account, the main points arc declared to be entitled to credit.

Now with these relations it is proper to notice certain cases, as it is astonishing to note and observe the longevity of superstition even in our day; for there still exists a class of credulous beings who believe in the possibility of the disease being communicated from one person to another. It has been asserted that a maid-servant died merely from seeing her mistress vomit while labouring under hydrophobia; or the case of the labouring man's children who all died on the seventh day, as is alleged, from embracing their dying father; or the example of a woman contracting hydrophobia from her husband; nor other cases of a similar nature, as they are not now regarded as proving nothing more than that the patients supposed to have caught the disease by contagion fell victims either to violent affections of the mind and nervous system, or illness accidentally taking place soon after the death of a near relation. It is clear enough, also, that some of the. causes were, at most, only instances of symptomatic hydrophobia.

Again, with regard to another opinion, that the bite of a man or other animal when merely enraged may bring on hydrophobia, it is now entirely discarded as erroneous J therefore wrong notions of a dangerous tendency have been generally entertained in regard to the disease as it appears in the canine race. The peculiar symptom which often attends the complaint in the human subject has been applied to the disease in the dog, and has occasioned it to be called by the same name, hydrophobia. But this is decidedly a mistake, for in no instance does there exist any dread of water; on the contrary, dogs are, as a rule, greedy of it. Neither have sheep any dread of water, but frequently take if with great freedom.

Now such unfounded suppositions have often conduced to a very fatal error; for it being the recognised opinion that no dog is mad who can lap water, many persons have been lulled into a dangerous security.

Another equally false and fatal idea has prevailed that every mad dog must be wild and furious; but this is so far from being true, that in the greater number of instances there is very little of that wild savage fury that is expected by the generality of individuals. Hence it is evident that the term hydrophobia characterising this disease in the dog is a misnomer; so it is evident the term madness is equally so, because in very few cases have the mental faculties been disturbed. The disposition to do mischief is rather an increased irritability than absence of sense; for, in most instances, even those that are furious acknowledge the master's voice and are obedient.