Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1901-09-08

first attacked. In such cases death VIII
usually result in from three to four
days, although existence may be pro-
longed TO eight days. A post mortem
will show the stomach empty OF food,
but containing fragments OF wood,
rags, small stones, straw etc. Every
dog in evident distress and inclined TO
bite other animals or men is not neces-
sarily mad-it may only have dyspepsia
or cholera morbus-but there should be
no hesitation In taking immeditte pre-
cautions in case of accident for that
means the patient will be on the safe
side for the mortality under he Pasteur
treatment is only about .06 per cent,
whereas it was formerly rs to 40 per
cent of all persons bitten by animals
mad OF supposed to be.
In speaking OF this dreaded disease,
William Os.er, the celebrated physician,
says in his work:
"Ghe bites should be carefully washed
and thoroughly cauteHzed with caus-
tic potash or concentrated carbolic
acid. 1t is best to keep the wound con-
stantly open for five or six weeks.
When once established the disease Is
hopelessly incurable. No measures
have been found of the slightest avail,
consequently the treatment must be
palliative. The patient should be kept
in a darkened room, in charge of not
more than two careful attendants. To
allay the spasm, chloroform may be
administered and morphia given hypo-
dermically. 1t Is best to use these pow
erful remedies from the outset, and not
to temporize with choral, bromide OF
potassium, and other less potent drugs.
BY the Local application of cocaine, the
sensitiyeness of the throat may be
diminished sufficiently to enable the
patient to take liquid nourishment.
Sometimes he can swallow readily.
Nutrient enemata may be administered
"Pasteur has found that the virus,
when ~propagated through a series Of
rabbits, increases rapidly in its viru-
lence; so that whereas subdural innocu-
lation from the brain of a mad dog
takes from fifteen to twenty days to
produce the disease, by successive inoc-
ulations in a series Of rabbits the incu-
baton period is gradually reduced to
sever days. The spinal cord Of these
rabbits contains the virus in great in
tensity, but when preserved in dry air
the virus gradually diminishes in lnten-
sity. If now dogs are ~inoculated with
cords preserved for a shorter period,
/. e., with a progressively stronger
virus, they gradually acquire immunity
against the disease. A dog treated in
this way will resist incubation with
material from a perfectly fresh cord
from a rabid rabbit, which otherwise
would inevitably have proven fatal.
Pa1vin0 ttnnr thaco ovnAr-poantc Doc
teur began incubation in the human
subject, using on successive days, ma
terial from cords in which the virus
was of varying degrees of intensity.
There is still much discussion as to
the full value of this method but If the
protective incubation can be success
fully performed in dogs, there is no rea-
son why the same should not hold good
for man..
There is a fa.se pseudo rabies, which
appears to be merely a hysterical mani
festation in a person bitten by a dog
simply angry an with no other symp-
toms of madness. In such cases there
is often an inability to drink, but the
disease does not progress, and although
the malady lasts longer than true
rabies, it yields to treatment, chiefly
through strong electrical currents.
DR.. Refer only went to Pittsburg
four Or five days ago for a course of
treatment having returned after his
first visit. 1t is yet too early for a
manifestation of symptoms either way,
as the period of incubation, If the bite
be really serious, has not sufficiently
advanced.
In this connection reference may be
properly made to a case of h%ydrophobia
resulting from the bite or a wolf, oc-
curing at Little Washington early in
the past century and to which bod
bridge makes reference in his Notes"
The patient was passing his barn on
a beautiful night, and hearing a COM
motion inside he leaned over the closed
half of the double door to see what was
wrong. A wolf that had strayed into
the barn, sprang at him and inflicted
a wound which, although slight in IT
self. produce death in its most hor-
rible form. At that early period the
disease was not well understood by
practitioners, but within the last ten
years great progress has been made IN
treatment as the Pasteur system indi-
Gates.