The Irish standard., 1886-05-15
IMAGINATION OR RABIES?
NYm CRINKLE RECALLS SOME
CURIOUS EFFECTS OF Dog
BITES.

NYm CRINKLE RECALLS SOME
CURIOUS EFFECTS OF Dog
BITES.
How He OvercaIne His Own Fears
and Saved a Valuable Beast-The
Death of the Gifted Ada Clare
Caused by Fear-Doctors I'm the
Dark.
Hydrophobia is one of the most terrible,
the most mysterious and the rarest Of
diseases that aftiict humanity Not one
doctor in {. hundred ever saw we'll
| authenticated case of it.
am at this moment writing this arti-
| Gle with hand lacerated by the bite of a
strange dog. I encountered him one
Sunday morning two weeks ago in front
| of my residence 1 am q lover of dogs.
! This was brjndled bull terrier held by g
chain. patted him on the head. He
wagged his tail. jumped up affectionately
upon me. slapped him playfully on his
| side and in an instant he fastened his
| an artery and cut it. l bought the dog.
It cost 1ne SIS I domiciled him. For
| forty-eight hours had one of those sub
| jective struggles which teach man how
absolutely he is at the mercy of his imagi-
| nation. 7 went up to DE-. Hamilton. He
| looked at my hand. and asked at once,
s*Whera is the dog?' .:Iv'e got him.
replied. .Is he all right?' Sound as a
| dollar." s:Then don't give the thing
! another thought. If I cauterize the
wound you are liable to have secondary
hemorrhage, and then you will be disabled
| for fortnight" ''Ihatw was all the medi~
cal treatment I received. But I found
myself that night dwelling upon the Incl
dent, All the dread possibilities were re-
| hearsed My fancy exaggerated my
knowledge and my feelings felt prick
| ing and burning sensations run up my
| arm. Ifell into an uneasy doze. heard
the snarl and saw the CLEAN Of fangs In
! the pnantasmas;oria of q nervous sleep.
| woke up in the morning unrefreshed
and with dull consciousness that some
| thing was impending. After a bath and a
| walk in the sun my resisting power began
! to assert itself. saw that at this rate
! would evolute out of nothing all the symp-
| toms Of rabies.
| sincerely believe at this moment that
| could have brought on the symptoms of
tetanus If I had only placed myself under
| my own imagination. II that dog had
shown any symptoms Of sickness I should
have been case for Pasteur But he
! proved to be as straight as a trivet.
made friends with him. I found that he
had broken rib. I must have struck
that when slapped him On the side.
| Now consider a moment. If I had
killed that dog when he bit me, as it was
very easy to do all the science, all the in
| telligence and all the reason Of the world
could not have saved me from my own
fears And that is the result with almost
every case Of dog bite. The first step on
the part of stupidity is to kill the dog.
Then he is declared to be mad, and then
sets in the chain of subjective and fanciful
results Science and common experience
agree that unless the dog has rabies there
is no danger Of the victim Of his bite hav~
ing llydrophol,ia. Well, my own ex-
perience tells me that one dog in about
Ave thousand that are killed as mad
really has rabies. Dog men are bitten
every day. Your ordinary dogAghter is
covered with scars. There isn't a sports
man who hasn't had the mark of a tooth
On him.
The dog is subject to epilepsy and
nervous attacks that are common enough.
But if poor animal should get q fit in
the streets ct New York the cry of mad dog
is his doom-end the doom Of everybody
the bites. Could he be saved from the
ignorant malice of the mob, something
might be determined. We should at least
know il imagination can bring on the
symptoms III the man while the dog is
healthy.
Everybody remembers the gifted Ada
Clare who was bitten in the face by a pet
dog She died in the most horrible parox-
ys,ns of hydrophobia. saw her just be-
fore she died. She was a woman of men,
tai accomplishments and strong, imagi-
native temperament. Science stood help
less at her bedside, unable to save her, and
powerless to assuage her agonies with the
most powerful drug know to the pharma-
copOeia.
Mr.. Butler, I think it was, in Burling
slip who obtained the dog. At all events,
month after Ada Clare's death received
note from we!l-known dog fancier to
come and see the dog. The animal at that
time appeared to be in perfect health. /
have always believed that Ada Clare was
the victim of her own imagination.
Per contra, saw q case of undoubted
hydrophobia in Wisconsin that was diag
nosed as tetanus. It was tlnat Of q child
six years old that was bitten by a Spitz
dog, that died two hours after in a rabid
paroxysm. The parents were ignorant
Germans. knew nothing Of hydrophobia
whatever, and the wound was a mere pin
prick in the thnmb.
But month later the child was taken
sick, and died, as I say, with all the
symptoms of hydrophobia.- The French
doctors, with characteristic French viva
city, have put atloat more theories of hydro
phobia than all the rest of the world.
Their speculations have not, it is true,
verified anything, but they have stimulated
inquiry. Some years ago they shut up
forty dogs and left them without water
until they died, in order TO see if the
deprivation would induce rabies, but it
didn't They they tried an enforced con-
Thence, and here they got little light,
for several of the dogs developed lncipient
epilepsy.
The theory was then propounded that
hdrophobia was sexual disease, found
only in the male dog, and was due to
enforced confluence. M. Pasteur does
not take any stock in this theory. He has
pursued his investigations on the line Of
germinant or zymotic incubation, and
not on the line Of energetic formulation.