The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-06-21

A-AN kNAph OL IiiNubalAOll NdIlGS hlLll
 the age of the patient, the condition of the animal and the extent and location | of the wounds. Lacerations of the face
 and head are especially dangerous. | Following them in order come wounds ! of the hands, thighs and legs. A large ragged wound is naturally more dan
 erous than a mere scratch When the
 animal bites through the clothing the
 latter seems to filter out a good many
 of the germs.
 | It must be remembered here that hy- | drophobia is not always caused by
 bites. A scratch on the hand, licked by a mad dog, may cause fatal infection. | It is agreed by all competent author ities that rabies is casued by some mi 1 ute organism. just as yellow fever, smallpox. carbuncles, bubonc plague, | barber's itch and all other contagious
 and infectious diseases are produced. | bu5 there is still doubt as to the exact nature of this organism. In 1903 an in- 1 vestigator named Negri found that cer- tain peculiar little bodies-nlere micro scopic specks--Were to be met with in l the brains of animals that had died of
 hydroDhobia.
 1 Many students are inclined to believe | that these are exceedingly small malignant parasites-and that ] they cause the disease. Whether this
 be true or not, the fact remains that 1 they have been found in dogs, rabbits,
 cats and human beings killed by rabies 1 and that they are not present in the
 organs of animals dead of other dis
 eases. They are called negri bodies, af-
 ter their dIscoyerer, and they somewhat
 resemble the organisms which produce
 malaria.
 Formerly it took a good while to de- | ternline with any accuracy whether or
 not a suspected animal really had hy-
 drophobia, but now these little negri bodies afford an infallble means of
 judging,
 The Pasteur method for combating
 rabies is always undergoing improve
 ment and 1t is thought that in the
 course of time it will be possible to produce immunlzation in few days The plan of using virus of differing de- grees of intensity--from fifteen, thir- teen and eleven day cords and so on- is an improvement over Pasteurs orig inaI method, and the examination of brains and spinal cords for negri bodies 1 is another,
 Once upon a time every genuine case of hydrophobia was necessarily. fatal
 And how are we tq explain the vide spread popular belief that hydrophobia
 does not really exist? Simply by tho fact that thore is a nervous disease, called pseudo hydraphqbia. or lyssopho-
 bia, which sometimes initiates 1t quite closely and alwa.s cures itself
 Lyssophobia is variety of hysteria.
 Very often when a nervous person is bitten by q dog which is as free of hy- drophobia as 1t is of cholera morbus, the patient begins to imagine that he is going mad. He froths at the mouth, he barks and he shrinks from water. In inc course of time q maidstone, a bunch of dogs hair or some other pre- posterous quack remedy cures him. But he has not had hydrophobfa at all.
 If there were better dog laws in the United States there would be mitch less rabies Nine times out of ten it is caused in the human subject, by the bite of mad dog Over in England they stamped it out in 1890 by passing a law requiring all dogs to be mug zled and forbidding the importation of dogs from other countries. Since then there has been no hydrophobia in England.
 In Russia it is very prevalent dis ease. The wolves in the vast forests there frequently have it and by biting domestic animals introduce sources of infection into the cities and towns In France it is also often met with be- cause in that country there are no prop- CT laws regulating the keeping of dogs.
 Many curious remedies for rabies have been advocated in the past There are still people who have faith in mad stones crab claws, dragon flies, spider webs, bloodroot, flaxseed and tar, snake stones, soot ham fat dogs hair and other doses and charm.
 Tn the South there are plenty of darkes-and whites, too for that mat ter-who believe that Spanish fly rub bed into the wound on three successive mornings before new or full moon is sure cure for rabies In other parts Of the country it is believed that per son bitten should pluck the feathers from the tail of rooster and apply them to the wound, If the dog was mad they say the rooster will swell and die; if it was not, the bird will remain alive New York Sun.