The New York herald., 1869-02-18
HydrOphObia.


cats in the other half-two or three hundred
thousand, perhaps, of the animals that may
communicate this disease-its occurrence
naturally awakens more or less uneasiness In
many families. This uneasness is the more
notable and natural wherever there is parent
there is only beloved pet poodle whose
owner may be suddenly compelled to regard
him as darling but little less terrible in char
acter than q cobra di capello. As is usual
this particular uneasiness is much the worse
for the absolute ignorance Of the public on the
subject, and for the fact that while the people
have no knowledge they have and tenaciously
hold some mischievous old scraps of prejudice
and theory admirably calculated to stimulate
the Imagination and feed fear.
Since our only purpose is to instruct and
benefit the public we will be excused for ex-
amining and discussing without restraint the
case of Mr.. Ludlam. This gentleman died last
Monday in Brooklyn, and the physicians, we
suppose, have certified that the cause of death
was hydrophobia. Four weeks before death
the gentleman was bitten by his own dog,
while whipping it. No one believed that the
dog was mad.neither the mans family nor
cations of disease before the occurrence, and
gave none afterward; but he was killed, ap-
parently in obedience to the popular dictum
on this point, which holds that the bite Of
dog may prove fatal if the dog should live to
become mad even after the bite is given.
The wound healed readily, acting not at
all as poisoned wound does. In rather
less than month the man became
ill. Medical advice was obtained, but we
are not informed of the physicians dag
nosis save negatively on one point We are
informed, however, as to the mans judgment
on his own case. He was sure he had hydro
phobia. He seems to have told the doctor
SO for the doctor 'scould see no indications Of
that terrible disease" At this time we hear
of one vague symptom; there was 'extreme
nervousness On the next day the doctor
had come into his patients intellectual atmos-
phere, and saw the disease as he did. In the
closing scene we see the man violently con-
vulsed, ''but all the time well aware OF the
cause Of his agonies, and, what is very char
acteristic, warning people not to come near
lest he should bite them, and having the GUS
tomary horror Of fluids. He made desperate
efforts to master his involuntary repugnance"
to fluids, and in virtue Of these efforts swal-
lowed his broth.
Now, this is very instructive case for the
public to observes for this man did not die
from the malady that is charged with his
death. 1t is o great many years since
Chomel taught that rabies Gamma was accused OF
more than it is responsible for, and, in his clas-
sification Of four forms of hydrophobia, pointed
out that in srabiform hydrophobia'
the essential fact is that some other disease,
fever, or spinal Inflammation, comedies with
the idea in the mans mind that he has in his
system the poison of rabies. As to the opinion
of the Brooklyn doctors that the saliva from
an angered dog is as poisonous as that from
rabid one, 1t Is to be said that the dog is then
a very dangerous animal, for we suppose he
seldom bites save when he is ''angered." On
that theory there are many men now
alive in this city who ought to be dead;
for the bite of rabid dog is inevitably fatal
unless the wound is very vigorously treated at
the time it is received. From the bites of
angered dogs recovery is common, and through
long lives men experience no bad results from
the injury. In France the average of deaths
from the bites of rabid animals Is one hundred
and sixty-two per annum, and they have ac-
cordingly given the subject much thought in
that country. They have inquired very closely
also into this question Of the bites Of angered
dogs, and they are satisfied that the deaths
traced to such source are in fact due to the
false or rabiform hydrophobia, in which the
hydrophobia is mainly in the victims imagina-
ton.
First we believe that in Mr.. Ludlam's case
the disease came too soon to be q real case of
rabies; otherwise we must suppose that the
poison from this merely provoked dog was
more virulent than is, as a rule, that from dogs
confessedly rabid This cannot be credited.
In the greatest number Of cases the constitu-
tional effect appears in from thirty to ninety
days, but this is because the greatest number
bitten are children. Eleven cases in a group
OF two hundred and twenty-four occurred in
from six to twelve months. The younger the
person the shorter is the period required for
the poison to act upon the system, this differ
ence being due probably to the difference in
resistance from greater or lesser vital power.
The poison might have shown its effect any
where within a year in full grown man, but
not within month. In the hydrophobia
Of delusion the symptoms come in the
order in which they stand in the popular faith
in true rabies they come In quite another
order, and have quite different prominence
respectively. II is strikingly thus with the
horror Of liquids that has supplied the name
Of the disease There Is no better preserved
delnsion than this fayorite piece of popular