PROFESSOR MACLEOD ON HYDROPHOBIA IN GLASGOW.

Clutha Leader, Volume III, Issue 139, 9 March 1877, Page 3

PROFESSOR MACLEOD ON HYDROPHOBIA IN GLASGOW.

Prof, G. H. B. Macleod recently delivered in Oampkill U.P. Church the sixth of the course of lectures beinggiven under the auspices of the Crosshill Young Men's Christian Association. He said that* lie' wished to make a fewremarks about hydrophobia. He had never seen: it -in any of the countries he had visited on the Mediterranean, and he' had also been informed that the disease had never been known there. It was a curious- -fact- that the disease never occurred in the Arctic regions, but wa* most prevalent in temperate

countries, and particularly in England The first case he was called to in the Glasgow Infirmary did not impress him very much. He was more impressed with the secOnd case, and the third one made him recognise a disease he had never seen before. The extraordinary tning about hydrophobia was that it was extremely rare. At a large meeting of the medical profession, he was the only one present who had ever seen a case — if the case he had visited in Govan with Dr Laurie really was one of hydrophobia. He thought it a remarkable fact that all of a sudden there should have arisen in Glasgow a disease which none of 'the members of the medical profession had ever seen Wore. His reason for speaking about this wus that he wanted to allay fear. He might say the disease was one very difficult to propagate. One of tbe poor fellows who died in the hospital during his struggles bit one of the nurses, who became greatly alarmed lest she should be affected with the disease. This was, however, impossible, for it had never been propagated from one human being to another. He would not care although a dog bit him through his clothes, because the teeth of the animal cutting through his clothes would be cleaned, and there would not be the least fear of hydrophobia resulting. There had been many persons bitten in this way by dogs that were known to be mad, and not one of them had taken hydrophobia, but supposing a mad dog was to go into a room and bite a dozen persons, it was perfectly possible that the first one or two who were bitten might take the disease, but the others would not. It was curious, too, that after a time the dog's jaws became paralaysed and he became incapable of biting ; but the most extrordinary thing was the great effect the mind had upon the disease. If a person was bitten by a dog it was foolish to destroy the j animal, for many men had been brought as from a bed of death by being shown the dogs that bit them. The first patient in the Western Infirmary had told him that he was perfectly well till one day he took up a newspaper and read of a man that had died from hydrophobia, and he was never of any use from that moment. The second told him exactly the same thing, and poor Sergeant M'Gilvary informed that him. his mind was haunted night and day by the bite he received, knowing as he did, that people had died from, hydrophobia, till at last he had those extraordinary symptoms which seemed really as muoh mental as bodily. Professor Macleod condemned the burning of the part bitten. The way to manage a wound was to stop the circulation at the part, suck the wound, rush cold water upon it, and dress it in the simplest way. There was a huge lot of nonsense talked about hydrophobia, and they need not be in the least afraid of it. If they lived for twenty-five years the chances were that they would not see any more of it in that city. Hundreds of persons had been bitten in Glasgow within the last few months, and, as showing* how rare the disease was, there were only three — if these were as he thought they were — cases of hydrophobia. None of the men who died had any fear of water. They took hold of the cup containing water, but the moment the cup touched their lips it produced a spasm which sometimes made them throw it from them, not from horror of the water, but from fear of the spasm.