Of that most horrible and fatal disease--rabies--little need be said here. It is accompanied in the Dog by inflammation, inability to swallow, insensibility to pain, even to severe blows or burns, and usually great ferocity, and a disposition to bite everything that comes in its way. The gait, the glance, and also the howl of a mad Dog are very characteristic. But the most terrible thing about rabies is that it can be communicated to man, producing in him the special human form of the disease, hydrophobia. This latter, like rabies, never arises except by inoculation with the saliva of a rabid Dog, so that both these terrible, and it is to be feared increasing diseases, might be stamped out by the adoption for a few months of a rigorous quarantine.[109] When a human being is bitten, symptoms of rabies usually occur in from a fortnight to three months; but a case is on record in which the disease did not appear for twelve years! When the poison is once established in the system a cure seems to be utterly impossible. The only remedy is at once either to cut out the wound or to rub it deeply and thoroughly with lunar caustic (nitrate of silver), which Mr. Youatt states to be far more efficacious than actual cauterising or burning with a red-hot iron. * * * * * The varieties or breeds of the Dog are extremely numerous, and differ from each other to a wonderful degree. In the matter of size, we have the Mastiff, as large as a pony, at one end of the series, and the Toy-terrier, a few inches long, at the other. As to the development of hair, there is every gradation, from the hairless Turkish Dog to the Skye-terrier or the Poodle; as to running powers, there are the Greyhound and the Turnspit; in the matter of mental and moral characteristics, we have the intelligent Shepherd’s Dog, the obstinate and courageous Bull-dog, the silly Italian Greyhound, and the lazy Lap-dog. Never was animal so thoroughly, so unanimously, and so successfully selected: never did any show such endless variation in so many particulars. CHAPTER VIII. THE DOG FAMILY.--DOGS OF SAVAGES--DOGS OF CIVILISED NATIONS--WILD DOGS.