Warren sheaf. [volume] (Warren, Marshall County, Minn.) 1880-current, 1896-08-20
is HYDROPHOBlA A REALITY
Competent Physicians Think the Dreaded
Disease Does Not Exist.

Competent Physicians Think the Dreaded
Disease Does Not Exist.
With the approach of midsummer
comes 1.-The usual hydrophobia scare,
and nervous people are almost fright
| cned out Of their wits at the mere
| thought Of being attacked by dog af-
Aicted with rabies. It is, of course,
the part OF wisdom to give vicious
| dog, mad OF not mad, wide berth,
both in the summer months and when
| the mercury is lowering around the
zero point. At the same time it is en-
couraging to be Informed by dis
tinguished professors of medicine and
surgery that hydrophobia is at best a
theory and has no actual existence. 1t
belongs, according to pamphlet recent
~ published in Philadelphia, to the
class Of simulated diseases. II am of
the opinion" says Dr.. Joseph w.
Iiearn, professor of clinical surgery in
Jefferson medical college, ''that the
bite Of a dog is no more dangerous
than the scratch of a pin or the pune
! lure of an infectious nail. Because of
exaggerated printed and oral accounts
the picture Of hydrophobia is so
| stamped upon the public mind that the
thought of it, after being bitten by a
dog, throws imaginative people into
panics of nervous excitement, in which
they unconsciously reproduce it's sup
posed symptoms" DR.. Charles w.
Dalles, lecturer on the history of medi-
cine in the University of Pennsylvania,
has made the most exhaustive investi-
cation, both in the United States and in
Europe, and he inclines to the view that
there is no such specific malady as n.y.
dlophobia, and that there is not case
| on record which can be conclusively
proved to have resulted from the bite
of dog or any other cause. The rec
ords of the London hospital showed re-
Gently 2,668 persons bitten by angry
dogs, but none of them developed hv-
drophobia. ST. Georges hospital, Lon
don, treated 1000 patients bitten by dogs
hydrophobia. At the Pennsylvania hos
pital, Philadelphia, only two cases
which we're supposed to be hydrophobia
have occurred in 40 years. One of these
was submitted to meteorological tests,
but the diagnosis of hydrophobia was
not confirmed and the municipal au-
thoritics refused to accept the death
as one from that disease. At the Phil
adelphia dog pound 100000 dogs have
been handled in the past 25 years, and
many Of the keepers and employees have
been bitten, yet there has never been
case of hydrophobia. DR.. Edward c..
Spitzlla, the distinguished New York
specialist, says: "Much of the observa-
ton of suspicious dogs is made through
optics disturbed by fear and by per-
sons incompetent to interpret what
they see.'' Notwithstanding every ef-
fort which DR.. Spitzka has made to Sc
cure the observation of rabies in man
Or dog, not a single opportunity has
been afforded him., The testimony of
medical men of wide experience is in-
variably to the effect that if hydro
phobia develops in human beings at all
it is only on rare occasions, and that
the condition of hysterical excitement
usually described as hydrophobia is
merely series of symptoms due to the
dread Of the disease.-Baltimore Sun.
American cheese, to the amount of