Waterbury evening Democrat., 1906-10-06
ANOTHER VIEW OF II
Dog Lovers Say That HydTophobia
 SCares Are Manufactured.

An article appeared in Vogue re-
 gently in relation to dogs and hydro
 phobia. Now that the dog scare is
 on J. G. Jones thinks 1t will make in-
 teresting reading for Waterbury peo-
 pie.
 The New York public was treated
 in the early autumn to another sam-
 pie of what may be called the hydro phobia scare. A physician expressed
 to Herald reporter his fears that,
 with the coming of cold weather an epidemic of hydrophobia would break out around and in New York. The physician is quoted as saying that there has been an alarming
 number of these cases (dog bites)
 this summer, and he has urged that
 persons who are bitten, or even
 scratched, should attend to their cases at once (call upon the Pasteur people for treatment, presumably,
 as after the disease develops sufti-
 ciently to be recognized there is no | II. persons having been bitten and when | the cold weather sets in it may be expected that cases of rabies will de-
 velop." No more gruesome or heart
 less prediction was ever put forth.
 Here is something calculated to ere ate panic in regard to hydrophobia, of which there is no more danger
 than that this city will be scourged this winter with the falling sickness.
 It is we'll, however, that such terror izing predictions should again be
 made, as the public, for its own peace of mind, cannot become too soon ac- | quainted with the facts in regard to hydrophobia and hydrophobia scares. In sharp contrast to this hysterical and baseless warning is the same dis cussion of hydrophobia in the Sun. Here 1t was pointed out that laymen
 who have had the care of dogs in
 large numbers, or who have sold
 them for a livelihood, are the most sceptical about the danger of rabies.
 Although many of these men in handling thousands of dogs annually
 receive bites a-plenty, they neither hie themselves to Pasteur institutes nor do they die of hydrophobia. They are not, to be sure, trained physicians and their opinions may not be en- titled to great weight, but their eX- perience cannot be whistled down the
 wind. If rabies is as prevalent
 in dogs as some unreflecting doctors claim, how do they account for the immunity of dog catchers, s. P. c. A. officials, and the others who continu- ally handle numbers of dogs-healthy ones, and those that are diseased.
 Our Dumb Animals-the organ of the Boston society-has recently shed some light from professional men on this important subject. Professor Charles K. Mills of the University of Pennsylvania, a specialist in nervous diseases, declares that. although he has taken special pains to find "a clear case of hydrophobia" in hu- man subject, he has never succeeded. President T. Parvin of the National Academy of Medicine says that in forty-four years of practice he has never seen a case of real hydropho- bia, but he has seen many cases of hysteria, which were wantonly or ignorantly called hydrophobia. Dr Joseph w. Hearn, professor of clini- cal surgery in the Jefferson Medical |college, states, "I have never seen a case of hydrophobia, either in man or dog. nor do know any other physi- elan or surgeon who has. Dr Edward IC. Spitzka, the New York alienist, af- ter a painstaking investigation of many alleged cases of hydrophobia. states that notwithstanding every ef- fort he has made to secure the ob- servation of rabies in dog or man not a single opportunity has offered it. self" The Sun sums up the matter thus. Tt is a fair conclusion that panic fright, and not a deadly virus. is the cause of most of the deaths at- tributed to hydrophobia-a conclu- sion with which any disinterested person who investigates the subject will agree. What is one to think of physicians who go about senselessly creating hydrophobia panics?