St. Paul daily globe., 1888-01-09

ble Il rabid or not. A dread
IN ~ comes with the bite,
&SSS&s and gives rise to un-
pleasant thoughts and
sensations. even if there is no bad effect
from it. This fearis mainly due to edu-
cation. AS soon as the child leaves the
cradle, and gets to running around on
its own hook, it hears the cry of Mad
dog" and is taught to believe that a
d0g-bite is the worst thing in the world.
The child grows up with this fear, and
in turn teaches it to his children. This
WHOLESALE FEAR Is RIDICULOUS.
Because one dog in a million is
vicious. turns up his nose to water and
perhaps is tortured into deliriOuS
state, it is nonsense to condemn all the
other dogs in the world. A real rabid
dog is about as rare as the genuine
hydrophobia is in man. DOg-bites are
not pleasant, of course, and no one
bankers for them after one good
experience, but there are so many per-
sons bitten slightly in the hand or on
the arm by dogs in play OF anger, from
which no evil resulted, that they are
now looked upon by the medical pro-
feSSion in the same way as wound
from any other cause. 1t is only when
there is considerable destruction of
tissue that the bite of dog not rabid
becomes dangerous, and the danger de-
pends largely upon the temperament of
the person injured.
While thousands thus recover from
dog bites without anything worse than
temporary Inconvenience, yet it is an
established fact that
THE BITE OF MAN,
which is not thought to be dangerous, is
hundred fold more to be dreaded than
the bite of a dog without rabies. Taken
case for case, the dog bite will heal
more rapidly, and there will be fewer
constitutional disturbances. The bite
of human being is very troublesome.
The recovery from such wound is al
ways of a lingering nature, and seems
to go along on its own responsibility,
without regard to the remedies used.
Death sometimes follows from human
bites given while the owner of the teeth
was in an intense passion, condition
resembling some stages of rabies in the
dog.
The microscope, advanced chemical
experiments and the Intelligence of in
vestigators have discovered many
things that few years ago were thought
to be unknowable, but with all the in
crease in knowledge and the facilities
poison remains as much mystery as
ever. The effect of inoculatiOn has
been carefully studied to determine, if
possible, the resemblance of the Symp-
toms to those which follow the use of
well-knoWn pOisOns, but the hydrophO-
bic poison stands alone. 1t has Symp-
toms common to all pOiSOns, and a few
others which belong to it alone, but it is
as mysterious and unknown in its nat
ure as in its action. The effect of the
bite of a human being is well shown in
the
CASE OF AUGUSTUS SPENCER,
who wad admitted to Bellevue hospital
as patient last week. Spencer is a
machiniSt, and got into row with a
fellOW-WOrkman Dec. 2 about girl who
showed preference for Spencer. Dur
ing the melee Spencer was thrown
down, and his aSSailant, who had
worked himself into passion, bit off
the end of his nose and fastened his
teeth SO firmly in the neck that the
jaws had to be pried open with an iron
bar. Spencer suffered severe pain from
the bite-much greater than is
usual in more extensive decorations.
The wound in the neck was directly
over the carotid artery, and if the teeth
had been a trif1e longer it would have
been severed. Spencer went to a
neighboring drug store, where the
wounds were cauteriZed and dressed.
He was confined to his house for sew
eral days, and then went back to his
work. The neck wound appeared to be
healing well until about two weeks after
the injury, when it became the seat of
an active Inflammation. The neck
swelled and the wound had livid Jap
pearance. The nose did not seem to be
as much affected. There was
SENSATION OF NUMBNESS
in the neck, which soon included the
to Spencer that his head was off his
shoulders. He became apprehensive,
and got an idea that something terrible
was going to happen and he would have
to suffer greatly. His face wore the
look of utter despair that is common to
people suffering from melanchOlia. He
was unable to sleep for any length of
time, and when he would fall into dOZe
he would wake suddenly, gasping
with terror at some horrible
dream. He complained all the time
of a terrible twisting pain in the nape of
the neck. He suffered from nausea all
the time, and frequently vOmIted a
green, offensive fluid. Though he had
these and many similar symptoms, the
nature of his malady was not suspected
until spasm in tine throat followed an
attempt to drink water. Repeated trials
with different fluids produced the same
effects, with the exception that the
spasms were more intense and covered
longer period. In a few hours after
the spasmS began Spencer was in such
a nervous condition that the slightest
motion anywhere in the room would
PRODUCE CONVULSIONS
in the facial, thoracic and abdominal
muscles. A fiend from the Internal re-
giOnS could not look worse than he did
when his face was distorted. All these
conditions pointed to hydrOphobia, and
as there was no history of dOg-bite in
the case, it could only come from the
bite of the man, and this was remarka-
BILE, indeed. His sufferings dethrOned
his reason and made him a raving ma
MAC, and he was taken to the hos
pital, biting, swapping, bowling and
splitting like a mad dog. His face
was alternately red and white, and his
eyes seemed to be bursting from his
head. He was constantly calling for
some one to kill him, and his strength
was so great that he could only be con-
trOlled by putting him in a straight
jacket. The spasms lasted about fifteen
minutes, and each one was followed by
greater collapse. and it was only a
question of little while when the
patient would die if not relieved. Lache-
sis, hyOscyamus and stramonium were
given in large doses, besides chloral and
opium, without having any perceptible
effect.
DR.. Robb, one of the consulting ply
sicians OF Bellevue, heard of the case
and fastened to the hospital. 1t was
just the chance he had long been look
ing for. He is an expert OH hydropho-
bia, and believes that he can cure any
case, no matter how far it has advanced.
The patient was on the edge of death,
DIR. Robb had him put in an ambulance
and driven rapidly to Turkish bath es-
tablishment a few blocks away. He had
spasm on the road, and came out of
the horrible parOXysms more dead than
n1s ~ l.. 4.