"Almost weekly or monthly in summer we have a 'mad dog' scare. Some dog has been frothing at the mouth, which is never a sign of rabies, but of sickness or a fit; is chased by a crowd and after crawling under some porch or shed for protection, is killed by the random and numerous shots of some policemen.

"We ought to learn from the experience of others that there is very little danger from the bite of a dog. Let any person ask a dozen men if they have ever been bitten by a dog and probably more than half will say yes, in boyhood or later in life, with no evil results whatever.

"Dr. Gordon Stables, a prominent Englishman, says: 'All my life I have been among dogs. I have written five books on them. I have handled as many as 30,000 dogs a year. I have been bitten very often, and care no more for a bite than I do for the scratch of a pin; yet I have never seen a case of rabies, and I do not believe such exists.'

"Surgeon General Thornton says: 'I have served in India for thirty-five years, and was for many years in medical charge of a large Indian district, with a population of 2,000,000. Six dispensaries where about 100,000 people were treated annually were under my superintendence, yet, although dog bites were frequent, I never met a single case of hydrophobia in a native Indian, and I believe that the experience of others who have been civil surgeons in India is similar to mine.'

"Dr. Stockwell, a celebrated authority on dog disease, says: 'Distemper, toothache, earache, epilepsy and the whole class of nervous diseases to which dogs are subject are constantly taken tor rabies. Personally, after more than thirty years' experience as- a dog owner and student of canine and comparative medicine, I have yet to meet with a genuine case of rabies in the clog, and of some scores of so-called rabid dogs submitted to me for inspection I have found one and all to be suffering from other and comparatively innocent diseases.'

"Dr. Charles W .Dulles, the eminent lecturer on the History of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, says: 'After 16 years of investigation' he has failed to find a single case of hydrophobia 'that can be conclusively proved to have resulted from the bite of a dog or any other cause.'

Dr. Dulles says in regard to the treatment of a dog bite: "I am strongly opposed to the practice of cauterizing with silver nitrate. I have seen and treated very many dog bites, and have not used lunar caustic for 13 years, and no person that I have treated has yet developed hydrophobia, or that the mortality of those treated by me is less than that of those treated in Pasteur institutes. My treatment is simply through surgical cleaning and the application of a simple antiseptic dressing for a few days, with the positive assurance that there will be no danger of any disease."

Dr. Irving C. Rosse says in a paper read before the American Neurological Association, Philadelphia, June 3, 1895: "In Asia Minor and in Constantinople, the home of pariah dogs, one never hears of hydrophobia. The secretary of the Japanese legation in Washington tells me that he has never known of the disease in Japan, and that in Korea, with more dogs than any other country, such a thing as hydrophobia is unheard of. In London, with its five and one-half million inhabitantss, but one case was reported in 1892."

Dr. Dulles rinds from statistics gathered in the United States, that there is only one hydrophobia case to four million inhabitants. Of 267 persons in the U. S. bitten by dogs supposed to be rabid, he says only eight persons have died. •

Many of the best physicians recommended hot water baths for dog bites, as is done in India, rather than the Pasteur system, with its great expense and doubtful results. Professor Peter, the able editor of the French Medical Journal, says: "M. Pasteur does not cure hydrophobia - he gives it!" A physician describes the system as the "inoculating usually wholly uncontaminated human beings with the most terrible virus known to science ' - to-wit, that of hydrophobia."

"The Pasteur advocates admit that only from 5 to 10 per cent of persons bitten by a rabid animal ever have hydrophobia, with no treatment whatever. The writer of this article has been bitten several times, and would never allow the wound to be cauterized.

"Even if there be such a disease as hydrophobia in man, which is probably blood poisoning ( a thorn of a rose, the prick of a pin, the scratch of a baby's finger nail, the point of a lead pencil stuck behind the ear, the cut on the neck of a stiff linen collar have all produced blood poisoning), and if there be such a disease as rabies in a dog, which is probably distemper or epilepsy, it does not seem to be found among the homeless or unlicensed dogs, or those that roam the streets, which are the ones killed from the cruel supposition that they especially are dangerous.

"Dr. Matthew Woods, of Philadelphia, says: 'At the Philadelphia dog pound, where, on an average, over 6,000 vagrant dogs are taken up annually, and where the catchers and helpers are frequently bitten, not one case of hydrophobia has occurred during its entire history of 2 5 years, in which time 150,000 dogs have been handled.'

"At the dog shelter in New York City the Superintendent told me he had been bitten over a hundred times and paid no attention to it whatever. In killing 50,000 unlicensed dogs each year, to the great shame of an indifferent money-getting city, New York has not found one case of rabies. London, Eng., kills nearly the same number, and has not seen a case among its unlicensed clogs. Among the thousands of dogs killed after the brutal muzzling order in Washington, D. C, last year riot one case of rabies was found. Let the poor people keep dogs. They are good companions for their children, and do not lead to the workhouse or the jail. They are the best guard for our houses where there are no police; indeed cheaper than policemen, and usually more easily found when wanted. We spend money to give playgrounds and entertainments for children, and that Is well, but their dogs give them more comfort, usually, than almost any other one thing, as boys and girls will universally testify.