" 'Now here is a case in point, continued the professor. 'Last week, just before I came to St. Louis, a gentleman called on me one evening at my home in Cincinnati and said that he had just taken his pet dog to the police station near my house to be shot; that he thought that the dog had gone mad, and to be on the safe side he had decided to have him destroyed, and had brought him to the station house for that purpose. It was with much reluctance that he did this, however, as the dog was a household pet, and its death would be keenly felt and its presence missed. The policeman who was on duty at the time suggested that, as I lived near the station he could call me over to look at the dog. I assured the gentleman that I would go over to the station in a few minutes, and if I could do anything for the animal I would use the extent of my abilities, and he returned home.

" 'After I had finished my dinner I went over to the police station and found that the Sergeant had arrived. I asked him if he had the dog.

" 'Yes, said he; 'he's in that cage there."

" 'Bring him out,' said I.

"'Not on your life,' replied the Sergeant. 'I wouldn't touch that dog for all the money in Hamilton County. Why, man, he's mad; I won't go near him. If you want to be foolish enough to try and do anything with him, go and unlock the cell yourself; I think he ought to be shot without delay.'

" 'Well, I went over to the cell and saw the dog. He was a little Italian greyhound, as fragile-looking as a long-stemmed wine glass. The poor little fellow was in the throes of a hard spasm as I looked at him. He had his delicate, slender, head thrust between the bars in his pain, and his hind-quarters were jammed in between the two adjoining uprights. He looked up at me with fear showing out of his sick, brown eyes, but betrayed no signs of dog madness. He was so weak and trembling that he could scarcely stand.

" 'I unlocked the cell door and went in and picked the little fellow up, and after soothing him and getting him quieted down a little, I administered a dose of a fractional part of a grain of morphine to ease his immediate pain, and carried him away. A little later I gave him a small dose of castor oil and put him to bed. I sat up with that dog until 3 o'clock in the morning, and after he was relieved by the oil he was well, and, barring the weakness resulting from his terrific spasms of the night before, he was perfectly sound.' "

(I forgot to state in this interview that before leaving the dog, and after the oil, I gave him a dose of worm medicine; result was a lot of worms passed, and here was the cause of this "mad dog.")

"'After I had arisen in the morning I telephoned the owner of the dog to come and get his pet. He came, and his gratitude was manifest in the way he greeted the little fellow that he had condemned to death the night before,

" 'Now, supposing that the dog had bitten the Police Sergeant. The Sergeant was firmly convinced that the dog was afflicted with the rabies, and if, by any possibility the dog had bitten him he would have worried himself until it would have perhaps resulted in an attack of hydrophobia,

The dog would have been immediately killed, and thus all evidence that there was no rabies manifested in the animal would have been destroyed, and another name would have been added to the list of supposed victims to this terrible disease, delusion, or whatever you choose to term it.

" 'But what was really the matter with the dog, Professor?' queried the Post-Dispatch man.

"'Worms,' said Prof. Eberhart, 'nothing but worms. And let me tell you that at the bottom of nearly every illness to which a dog is subjected you will find worms to be the cause. In fact, they cause eight-tenths of all the deaths in the canine world. If owners would keep their dogs' bowels open with an occasional dose of some purgative there would be many less cases of "mad dogs" like that poor little, shivering, sick Italian greyhound lying on the sold stone floor of that Cincinnati station cell.

" 'But that wasn't the end of that case,' continued the Professor, 'and this part of it shows just how little this question of mad dogs is undersood. After I had gone down town to my office the same morning the dog had been taken home, his owner, who had called for him in the morning, came in.

" 'Now, Professor,' said he, 'I know and you know that our dog is all right, but my wife has been worrying all night about him, and she was so frightened yesterday over his wild running and jumping that nothing but a personal visit from you will reassure her and quiet her fears, and I wish you would call at my house and see her.

" 'I went out to the gentleman's residence and talked to his wife. I told her how her dog would act under certain conditions. I asked her, if her infant was thrown into spasms from worms if she would be afraid of contracting hydrophobia from it. I showed her that an ailment affected a dog exactly as it would a human. She was a sensible woman and saw the point at once, and I am sure there will be no more "rabies" in her dogs.

" 'Now, I know of another case,' said the professor, 'where a small child was bitten and a fearful gash cut by the dog's teeth clean to the skull, and that dog died two days later with all the aversion to water that they claim is an infallible symptom of hydrophobia, that he could manifest still the little boy did not have rabies, and simply because he was too small to take part in his parents' worry over the outcome of the bite.' "

The following appeared editorially in the St. Louis Republic, Feb. 24, 1896:

"Is the Mad Dog a Myth?

"This is far from dog-day time, but The Republic trusts that the optimism of the St. Louis Bench Show's Superintendent will be treasured by nervous mothers for use next August. He says that there is no such thing as poisonous rabies in dogs.

"It is curious that every man who has bandied great numbers of dogs bears the same testimony.