The Express.
London, England, 1864-08-22 00:00:00

WAR DOCTOR, what do you advise 1 I
.1.7 dyke Alfred Mellores Concerts afterwards to lIVANS.,
COVENT GARDEN. bear some charming singing. order one of
their capital chops and rasgaincent potatoes, and that ts the host
advice I sin give you.

!Mt erpreoo.

TO ODZIJOIONDINTE.
admirtliesmatm Intimated fer " The Isproon" Lando, P,S
!Rpm, mod be at the oil" 10. Biewiebmetrook by Two
.'look oa Vie day ot pabilostlem.

PRINCRIM &
TRW BVIIMIO. BORN TO 0000 LUCK Mr. D. Murray.
And THE BTKRETS OF LONDON. Messrs. LW. Bay, David
Fisher. D. Murray, J. Nelson. B. Forrester, and H. Mellon ;
Mrs. H. Marston, Mime Barnett and Gwynn..

BRITANNIA.
TRIO EMMA THE DRUNKARD'S CHILDREN.— Matt SY
Nr. H. Baku, Mr. H. Da Braman sad Ma J. H. Stead.— .G.
W. Radar.—Coacladlag wttk THR SWISS CHURCH.

!MR WATIM AT 110XDOI BILIDOIL
This DAY Morally. sb. .AlMemift. 4 Etni.
To-NO=ow —Monis&ILMB.

LONDON, MONDAY, AUGUST 22.

THERE is a common proverb which tells us to
give a dog an ill name and hang him. We have
complied with one partof the request, but not with
the other. We have given the dog one of the
most terrible of names—that of hydrophobia—but
we have not exterminated him. Liverpool lately
made itself ridiculously notorious by the massacre
of some six hundred dogs, but its example has for-
tunately not been followed by any other impor-
tant city. The dog, in spite of the fearful impu-
tation which hangs over him and the panic-stricken
brutality of the Liverpool police, still holds his
place as the most cherished companion of man.
He is suspected by police authorities, and muzzled
by Act of Parliament in England and France with
different degrees of ingenious cruelty, but he is
still the chosen friend of old and young. The
children find in him a toy which perpetually re-
news its freshness ; and mothers, as Doctor JOHN
BROWN truthfully puts it, find in him a
perpetual infant. He is not allowed to work
—also by Act of Parliament—but be relieves
his restless idleness by becoming the guardian of
property. He has even survived a tax—also im-
posed by Act of Parliament—which is not, how-
ever, collected with very severe regularity, if he
is wise enough not to bark at the tax-gatherer.
With so many excellent institutions, some of
them founded for his special benefit—with a So-
ciety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,
and a Home for Lost and Starving Dogs, which
has lived through all the false ridicule showered on
its birth, it seems a pity that some authoritative
inquiry has not been instituted before this as to
the reality of what is called hydrophobic. No
disease to which doctors ever gave a name has been
surrounded by so many vulgar errors, and the
belief in it which exists in the popular mind may
be placed on the same level as a belief in witch-
craft. One by one, nearly all the supposed
characteristics of the disease have been given up
by medical men, and yet they are still articles of
faith with the majority of the publ.,c. Nearly
every week, during the occasionally hot months
of summer, we are called upon to report "another
" cue of hydrophobia." Though the name of
the disease implies a horror of water, and a horror
of water is now known not to be a distinctive s'•a
of hydrophobia, the name is still retained.
Though people really suffering from this affliction—
call it by what name we will—are known not to
foam at the mouth, not to go on all fours like an
animal, not to bark, not to fly from drink, not to
be relieved if the dog recovers or is brained, as
usual, by a ready butcher, all these signs are duly
recorded. Whether such records are the result

of • distempered imagination, • foregone con-
clusion, exaggerated hearsay, or careless observe-
. tion, it is impossible to tell, and where so much
doubt exists we may be pardoned for trusting only
to science. Science tells us that a so-called mad dog
does not foam at the mouth, that he is generally
afflicted with a burning thirst, that his ferocity is
only shown in an inclination to bite dogs, and that
he is exceptionally kind to his human companions.
We have even been warned to beware of excessive
affection as one of the recognised signs of his ap-
proaching madness. The question of dog-madness—
or rabies, as it is technically called—being caused
by thirst in hot weather has been put to the test
of experiment. Dogs have repeatedly been tied
np in the so-called dog-days, and kept without
water, but though they have died under this priva-
tion they have shown no signs of rabies. Their mar-
tyrdom was cruel, but it has not benefited their
species. The "distemper "—a common disease
with dogs, which is easily cured by • few hours
oonfiner.ent in the dark—is nearly always con-
founded with madness. If a dog walks with his
tongue out in July and August, orruns with moderate
speed in a straight line, or turns round, or does
almost anything except keep out of sight, he is at
once proclaimed mad by the popular vol.*, and his
brains are dashed out in a frenzy of excitement.
This is not cruelty—for the dog hes no kinder
friends, a little dog fighting excepted, than the
lower classes—but gross, honest ignorance. July
and August are the two months of peril for the
dog, because the public and the police authorities
have so willed it ; though it ought to be known
that April, November, and December can show
three cases of so-called dog-madness for one in the

hottest months. While this disease is so obsti-
nately associated in England with hot weather, it
is curious that South America, the East Indies,
Egypt, and Equatorial Africa should be free from
hydrophobia. We leave professional medical
writers to explain this evident contradiction.
It strikes ns, as it must strike any impartial
observer, that the dog has been far from fairly
treated in this matter. There is undoubtedly a
disease which attacks human beings, and which
shows itself in rnch signs as inflammation of the
windpipe, gullet, or stomach, accompanied by a