Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1871-10-05
Miscellany.
DEALINGS WITH MAD DOGS.

MlSCClllAJs
DEALINGS WIIn MAD DOGS.
EVERY one will admit there are few sub.
iects which possess more terrible fasci-
nation than that Of hydrophobia. From
the awful nature of the disease, and the
capricious and III certain manner in which
it assais its victims, it is invested with
horror aud mystery beyond any and every
other i'll which man can suffer. do not
mean to touch upon the medical and scien.
titic eories or treatment of canine MAD
ness Such themes are above me. Nor
would the reader probably, be greatly en-
lighten.d were to do so, seeing that until
very recently a large section Of the scien'
tifc world entirely disputed the existence
of hydrophobia at all, or, at any rate, the
possibility Of its being communicated to
human beings. Nor shall dwell upon
symptoms which declare the dog to he az
fected, or attempt-unless mention them
accidentally-in any way to describe them.
All propose to do is to tell two or three
anecdotes of men who have been called
to confront mad animals Of the dog kind.
First let me tell the reader that the most
minutcly detailed and interesting narrative
of the whole kind is the death of the Duke
of Richmond, in Canada, from the bite of
a rabid fox. lie may read the story in
most anecdote books, and shocking enough
he will find it bat, terrible as it may be-,
it is also noble record of heroic endur-
ance Of dreadful calamity.
A great deal of good was done, despite
the uHpopularity Of the measures, by the
dog tax of few years back, and by the
late Sir Richard Mayne's order to the
police to seize all stray dogs whatever. In
the summer when that order was given
nearly fifteen thousand dos were so
seized, and London escaped, for the first
time in my memory, without single death
from hydrophoba A plain man like my
self looks at results, which are generally
more convincing than theories.
1t is very difficult in the earlier stages to
know whether dog be mad or not but
once it may save him much suffering, and
you from the narrowing reflection that
some human being has be- n bitten through
your neglect. Madn, ss is not always
traceable to a dog having been bitten it
sometimes comes on spontaneously. A
friend of mine once owned a favorite
terries which had recently Uttered
five puppies and, as she was kept
constantly in his garden, she could
not possibly have been bitten for some
considerable time. But she suddenly dis
played unmistakable symptoms of mad
ness, and ran up and down the garden
with saliva flying from her jaws, and her
head twitchiug from side to side, as the
heads of all mad logs do. This arises from
the convulsivc action Of the muscles of
the throat and neck, which invariably
charactcrizes hydrophobla-in human be-
ings, unhappiiy, as 'sell as in quadrupeds
and the imitation of which makes poi
soning by strychnine so painful to endure,
and 80 horritic to sec. Luckily my friend
himself was the first to notice her, and his
first care was to clos: the doors and order
no one to go into the garden. He had no
fire arms, and was afraid to leave the no use
to procure poison while she was at large,
lest she should scramble over the low wall
or some one should inadvertently enter the
inclosure. At last he thought of plan
which is worthy of being know n, in the
event Of any of my readers being unfor
tunate enough to need such an eXpedient
He procured an old box without Ida
tea chest would do, or any such thing
and, holding this before him, went straight
into the garden. The poor brute ran di-
rectly toward him, and had she come quite
clos" he would have turned the box over
could have done easily enough, for mad
dogs never dodge or twist about. But even
in hir frenzy her maternal instinct was
too strong, and she ran back to her kennel
and began sucking her puppies. AS the
end of the chain-Which Was still round
her neck--hung out of the kennel, her
master seized it and fastened it to its sta
pie, then sent tor some poison, and so
Killed her: for she would try to eat, al
though she c''uiu not drink But here is
the sGangcst part of the story, and to me
it 81 ems very pathetic. All her little pup
pies were rav,ng plad, too, and the foam
hung in flakes about their mouths, and
their po " little h ads t"itcheL Just as the
mothers had done. They had sucked in
malncss with their milk, Tor she had DOT
bitten any of them This was, in my ex-
peiience, at least, new feature in the his
tory Of hydro! hOhia
The most dangerous characteristic of
this disease is the capricious manner in
which 1t make' its appearance. Some
times The dog will show for several davs
that there is something wrong with him.
mopirg and stunning those of whom he
has hitherto been iontlest, while at other
times, as in the case just given, it comes on
with a frightful sud enness. The eminent
philanthropist, Sir T. F. Buxton, who was
a great and good man in private as we'll as
in public, had truly terrible adventure
with large and favoritc dog. He was
riding Oh horseback to London one morn
ing, from the vicinity Of Hampstead,
when he heard a great hubbub as he came
through the village, and, to his horror,
found that his own dog, which he had left
peh,nd him had broken out and, raving
n,wl m was biting at every thing near Mr.
'eIs a'uH o'h say him bite at least dozen dogs
az" several hu'nnn beings. In vain did
MS master rae After him and shout at or
Try 10 coax him; the brute no longer
oDtyrl the filniliar voice. ha tbeJ, . ~
preached London the idea Of Tn. M, p 8
ne would DO in the crowded streets h., ,ca,aa
so overpo"eriDg that his master decid"d
that 1t was his duty to run every risk, and
to capture hun at amy hazard; and the dog
forlunat, y turning up drive which led
to some lodgc-;'ae, iIr. Buxton spranr
from bis horse aud c'aspcJ the raviug mad
Newfoundland dog r und the neck! After
ID spera1e struggle he dragged the a4.imal
close cn,nch to enable him to ring the
bell, and the c'sr'l ner opened the lodge
gate Mr.. Buxton, with his permission,
iorc'd the dog into the garden, and a chain
having been procured it was fastened to
the dogs collar and to a tree. This part is
best told in Mr.. Bnxton's own words:
-, made the gardener, W lio was in a ter
rlo!c fright, secure the collar round his
neck, and fix the other end of the chain to
tree, and then, walking to its furthcst
range, with all my force, which was nearly
exhausted by his ffantlt; struggles, flung
him away from me and sprsng back. He