Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1851-01-04
THE ANTIISLAVERY iBUJGGIEE.
HydrOphObiu.

M. Bnsson has written to the Paris Acad-
emy of Sciences, to claim as his, small
treatise on hydrophobia, addressed TO the A.
caderny so far back as 1895, aud signed with
single initial. The case referred to in that
treutise was his own. The particulars and
the mode of cure adopted were as follows:
He had been called to visit woman who,
for three days, was said to be suffering under
this disease. She had the usual symptoms
-constriction of the throut, inability to swal-
low, abundant secretion of saliva and foam
ing at the mouth. Her neighbors said that
she had been bitten by mad dog about for
~ days before. At her own urgent entreat-
les. she was bled, and died few hours after,
as was expected.
M. Busson who had his hands covered
with blood, incautiously cleaned them with
towel which had been used to wine the
mouth of the patient. lie then had an ul-
ceration upon one of his fingers, yet thought
il sufficient to wipe off the saliva that adj
hered, with little cold water. The ninth
day after, being in his cabriolct, he was sud-
denly seized with pain in his throat, and
one still greater, in his eyes. The saliva was
continually pouring into his mouth the i'm
preston of a current of air, the sight of bril-
limit bodies, gave him painful sensation !;
his body appeared to him so light that he
felt as though he could leap to prodigious
hight. Tie experienced, he said, wish to
run aud bite, not men, but animals aud in
animate bodies. Finally, he drank with diff
ficulty and the sight of water was still more
distressing to him than the pain in his throat.
The symptoms recurred every five minutes.
and il appeared to him as if the pain com
menced in the affected finger, aud extended
thence TO the shoulder.
From the whole of these symptoms, iudg-
ed himself afflicted with hydrophobia, and
resolved to terminate his life by Sitting him
self in vapor bath. Having entered ole
for this purpose, he caused the heat to be
raised to 167 deg. 36 sec. Fallr when he
was equally surprised aud delighted to find
himself free from all complaint. lie left
the bathing room well, dined heartily, aud
drank more than usual. Since that time, he
says he has treated more than eighty per-
sons bitten, in four of whom the symptoms
had declared themselves; aud in no case
had iniled, except in that of one child, seven
years old who died in the bath. The mode
of treatment he recommends is, that the per-
son bit should take certain number Of va
por baths commonly called Russian) and
should induce every night n violent perspi-
ration, by wrapping himself in flannels, and
covering him with feather bed, the perspi-
ration is favored by drinking freely of wan
decoction of sarsaparilla. lie declares, so
convinced is he of the efficacy of his mode
of treatment, that he will suffer himself to
be inoculatcd with the disease. As proof
of the utility of copious and coutinualper-
spiration he relates the following anecdote:
A l.. ~
by mad dog, at the same time with many
other persons, who all died Of hydrophobia
For his part feeling the first symptoms of the
disease, he took to dancing, night and day,
saying that he wished to die gayly. lie re-
covered. Il. Buissop also cites the old sto-
ries OF dancing being a remedy for the bite
Of a tarantula; and draws attention to the
fact, that the animals in whom ihia
madness is mostly found to develop itself
spontaneously, are dogs, wolves, and foxes,
which never perspire. stt