The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1886-01-07
Hydropllobia.


them back.
Hydr0phobia.
The people of London, of New jersey
and of New York City are now being
possessed of panic in reference to mad
dogs, which amounts to an epidemic and
which may spread all over the country.
The newspapers of these localities TEEN
with editorial and news opinions on the
subject of rabies and hydrophobia, which
illustrate to very high degree The old
adagc that doctors disagree, and exem'
plify how unreasoning may people be-
come when demoralized by panic.
Some physicians say that hydrophobia
in man may be produced by the bite of a
rabid dog twenty years after the bite.
Many people believe that if dog is
killed Immediately after biting an indi-
vidual there will be no danger of the
disease developing in the bitten person.
And both many physicians aud many
persons believe that the bite Of dog
not mad will produce hydrophobia.
The most singular feature of this
whole business is the acknowledgment
by physicians that they cannot cure
hydrophobia- thus confessing that nature
gives disease for which in no case she
furnishes a remedy-a state OF things
absolutely without parallel in pathology.
As physicians, however, do not cure any
disease, this acknowledgment on their
part should not drive any layman into q
panic.
The fact is, that truly rabid dog is
rarity almost as great as black swan in
the days of Horace. The countless
stories we hear every day about police
men killing mad dogs comes from police
men who are not appointed to their posi-
tiou because of their special knowledge
of this disease. Most physicians, when
brought down to facts, will candidly con-
fess that they have never seen case of
hydrophobia, while all agree it is Of rare
occurrence.
The fact seems to be that the disease
called hydrophobia is either tetanus or
hysteria or both. The danger lies not in
the poisoned saliva of a dog, but in the
shape of the dogs teeth. Baron Larrey,
Napoleon's chief of surgeons, examined
many thousand cases of traumatic teta.
nus, and declared that every one resulted
from punctured or lacerated wound,
such as made by bayones or sabre
thrust, and never from clean.cut wound,
such as made by a sabre blow. The con-
sequent deduction was that, the nerves
being lacerated, such irritation of the
nervous system was produced as resulted
in lock jaw. Any blunt instrument is
calculated to give wound liable to bring
on lockjaw. A rusty nail is an elegant
tool for that purpose. A dogs tooth is
just as good as the nail. Now q singular
confirmation of this theory is found in
the remedy for traumatic tetanus, first
proposed, we believe, by the celebrated
Brown Sequard. He recut the lacerated
nerves with sharp instrument, so as to
produce a clean cut. The effect was
almost magical.
But along with tetanus is the disease
called hysteria. Patients suffering from
this affection make a singular noise in
their throats like the barking of dog.
They cannot swallow because of the
globus Mysterious. The sight of liquids
throws them into spasms. The convul.
sions are clonic or remittent, while in
tetanus they are tonic or continuous.
The spasms in hydropbobia are clonic.
But the writer of this once saw a young
man suffering from tetanus, which was
caused by saving his thumb accidentally
with a woodsaw. He was attended, if
the writer's memory is correct, by DIR.
McKim. Twelve hours before he died
the writer saw him in spasm which
was emphatically clonic-remitting after
certain interval to such an extent as to
permit him to swallow nourishlneut.
The boy had never been bitten by dog
in his life, hence there was no suspicion
of hydrophoba.
Now, as excision of the parts bitten
by dog has sometimes failed in averting
the so called hydrophobia, the writer
with all due Difference to the medical
fraternity, who are not yet unit in
acknowledging there is such disease
and who invariably fail to cure it) that
in such cases the excision did not cleanly
divide the already laceratcd nerves, but
still further tore and jagged them. At
all events, as the resources of surgical
learning and the drugs OF the pharma-
copea have been exhausted to no pur-
pose in trying to cure alleged hydropho.
bia, it would be worth the experiment of
trying Brown-Sequard's remedy for
tetanus, combined with proper treatment
for hysteria.
"What farmer needs in this world
to be successful" remarked Deacon Hay
seed, sis good wife. Then he's all