There is great objection to suction of the wound; for, in addition to this possible entanglement, the lips, or the mouth, may have been abraded, and thus the danger considerably aggravated. There also remains the undecided question as to the absorption of the virus through the medium of a mucous surface. Excision of the part is the mode of prevention usually adopted by the human surgeon, and to a certain extent it is a judicious practice. If the virus is not received into the circulation, but lies dormant in the wound for a considerable time, the disease cannot supervene if the inoculated part is destroyed. This operation, however, demands greater skill and tact than is generally supposed. It requires a determination fully to accomplish the desired object; for every portion of the wound with which the tooth could possibly have come into contact, must be removed. This is often exceedingly difficult to accomplish, on account of the situation and direction of the wound. The knife must not enter the wound, or it will be likely to be itself empoisoned, and then the mischief and the danger will be increased instead of removed. Dr. Massey was convinced of the impropriety of this when he advised that, "should the knife by chance enter the wound that had been made by the dog's tooth, the operation should be recommenced with a clean knife, otherwise the sound parts will become inoculated." If the incision is made freely and properly round the wound, and does not penetrate into it, yet the blood will follow the knife, and a portion of it will enter into the wound caused by the dog, and will come in contact with the virus, and will probably be contaminated, and will then overflow the original wound, and will be received into the new incision, and will carry with it the seeds of disease and death: therefore it is, that scarcely a year passes without some lamentable instances of the failure of incisions. It has occurred in the practice of the most eminent surgeons, and seems scarcely or not all to impeach the skill of the operator. Aware of this, there are very few human practitioners who do not use the caustic after the knife. Every portion of the new wound is submitted to its influence. They do not consider the patient to be safe without this second operation. But has the question never occurred to them, that if the caustic is necessary to give security to the operation by incision, the knife might have been spared, and the caustic alone used?