HYDROPHOBIA.

Evening Star, Issue 2992, 20 September 1872, Page 4

HYDROPHOBIA.

The return, at last, of the very warm weather, remarks the Paris correspondent of the Press, has brought to the surface a very old subject, still unfortunately very new, that of hydrophobia, and over which the scientific world is delivering battle. If we have no dogs ourselves, it is not amiss to know something about those of others. It is agreed on all sides that mad dogs can both, and do, very well cat and drink ; that when in a rabid state they display most affection for their masters ; and can be very mad although not at all foaming at the mouth. Restlessness scratching the ground, attempting to snap and bite the air ; and, above all, the peculiar barking—hoarse, veiled, weak, and suffocating whines, arc the unmistakable signs of the malady ; further, the animal will remain mute under blows, appear indifferent to pain, and will seize a red-hot bar of iron, as cases have occurred where the tail has been torn off, without any agonising expression. The French Government has published some interesting figures extending over a period of four years, and oue-balf of the country. From these it appears 320 persons were bitten, 120 of whom went mad; of the 320, 20(3 belonged to the male, 81 to the female sex, the clothing of the latter being a protective. Children run the greatest danger from carelessness ; 27 of the bitten were between five and fifteen years of ago. As a counterbalance the virus seems to affect the children the least In the foregoing 07, only 2(3 cases were mortal. Winter, not summer, would seem to ho the period when the greatest number of dogs go mad. Sixty days after being bitten, the symptoms of hydrophobia show ; eight months have been known to elapse, according to the age -quickest with young people ; death invariably follows on the third or fourth day ; there being no remedy, doctors merely administer opiates to deaden moral physical torture, When bitten, the wound should be at once deeply cauterised with a red-hot iron, a knife blade, or chisel raised to a red heat suiting in an emergency; vitrol, nitric, acid, &c., came next in efficacy. In Hayti the Natives cover the wound with gunpowder and set on fire. Every bite of a mad dog is not necessarily followed by hydrophobia, but this latter once declared is incurable.