within which its
attachment resides. There is something likewise in the disposition, which
causes the poor beast to quit the society of all it loves; and to leave
the house in which those for whom its life would cheerfully be sacrificed
dwell, to inhabit a dark and noisome corner. It is not mischief which
makes the creature respond to its master's voice so long as memory has
power--even after rabies has set in. There is no malice in the end of the
disease; it is blind and indiscriminate fury, which would much rather vent
itself on things than upon beings--even finding an unholy pleasure in
injuring itself by gnawing, biting, and tearing its own flesh; and so
truly is the fury _blind_, that most frequently the eyes ulcerate, the
humors escape, and the rabid dog becomes actually sightless.

Of the causes or treatment of this disorder we know nothing; neither are
we likely to learn, when the nature of the disease is considered. The
danger of the study must excuse our ignorance; nor is this much to be
regretted, since it is highly improbable that medicine could cure what is
so deeply seated and universally present. The entire glandular structure
seems to be in the highest degree inflamed; and besides these, the brain,
the organs of mastication, deglutition, digestion, nutrition, generation,
and occasionally of respiration, are acutely involved. The entire animal
is inflamed. Some except from this category the muscular system; but such
persons forget that paralysis of the hind extremities is often present
during rabies. The body seems to be yielded up to the fury of the disease,
and it obviously would be folly trying to cure a malady which has so many
and such various organs for its prey. Neither are we better informed with
regard to the causes which generate the disease. Hot weather has been
imagined to influence its development; but this belief is denied, by the
fact that mad dogs are quite as, if not more, frequent in winter than in
summer. Abstinence from fluids has been thought to provoke it; but this
circumstance will hardly account for its absence in the arid East, and its
presence in a country so well watered as England, especially when the
unscrupulous nature of the dog's appetite is considered. The French have
been supposed to set this latter question at rest by a cruelty, miscalled
an experiment. They obtained forty dogs, and withheld all drink from the
unhappy beasts till they died. Not one of them, however, exhibi