Another case of this fearful disease must not be passed over. A dog that
had been docile and attached to his master and mistress, was missing one
morning, and came home in the evening almost covered with dirt. He slunk
to his basket, and would pay no attention to any one. His owners thought
it rather strange, and I was sent for in the morning. He was lying on
the lap of his mistress, but was frequently shifting his posture, and
every now and then he started, as if he heard some strange sound. I
immediately told them what was the matter, and besought them to place
him in another and secure room. He had been licking both their hands. I
was compelled to tell them at once what was the nature of the case, and
besought them to send at once for their surgeon. They were perfectly
angry at my nonsense, as they called it, and I took my leave, but went
immediately to their medical man, and told him what was the real state
of the case. He called, as it were accidentally, a little while
afterwards, and I was not far behind him. The surgeon did his duty, and
they escaped.
In May, 1820, I attended on a bitch at Pimlico. She had snapped at the
owner, bitten the man-servant and several dogs, was eagerly watching
imaginary objects, and had the peculiar rabid howl. I offered her water.
She started back with a strange expression of horror, and fell into
violent convulsions that lasted about a minute. This was repeated a
little while afterwards, and with the same result. She was destroyed.
The horrible spasms of the human being at the sight of, or the attempt
to swallow, fluids occur sufficiently often to prove the identity of the
disease in the biped and the quadruped; but not in one in fifty cases is
there, in the dog, the slightest reluctance to liquids, or difficulty in
swallowing them.
In almost every case in which the dog utters any sound during the
disease, there is a manifest change of voice. In the dog labouring under
ferocious madness, it is perfectly characteristic. There is no other
sound that it resembles. The animal is generally standing, or
occasionally sitting, when the singular sound is heard. The muzzle is
always elevated. The commencement is that of a perfect bark, ending
abruptly and very singularly, in a howl, a fifth, sixth, or eighth
higher than at the commencement. Dogs are often enough heard howling,
but in this case it is the perfect bark, and the perfect howl rapidly
succeeding to the bark.
Every sound uttered by the rabid dog is more or less changed. The
huntsman, who knows the voice of every dog in his pack, occasionally
hears a strange challenge. He immediately finds out that dog, and puts
him, as quickly as possible, under confinement. Two or three days may
pass over, and there is not another suspicious circumstance about the
animal; still he keeps him under quarantine, for long experience has
taught him to listen to that warning. At length the disease is manifest
in its most fearful form.
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