HYDROPHOBIA.

349

often hangs out, and viscid saliva flows from the mouth ; there ispain in the stomach, with bilious vomitings, a horror of fluids, andimpossibility of drinking them. All these symptoms are aggra-vated till the sufferer is relieved by death.

Treatment. — The common notion, that this poison may lie inthe body for many years, and afterwards prove fatal, is both hurt-ful cind ridiculous. It must render such persons as have had themisfortune to be bit very unhappy, and can have no good effects.If the person takes proper medicines for forty days after the timeof his being bit, and feels no symptoms of the disease, there is rea-son to believe him out of danger. Some have indeed gone madtwelve months after being bit, but seldom later.

It is now well known that hydrophobia is more easily preventedthan cured ; in fine, it is very doubtful if ever it has been cured.Mercury, arsenic, opium, musk, camphor, acids, wine, vegetableand mineral alkali, oil, various herbs, and many other articles,whose effects are diametrically opposite, have been employedwithout benefit. Large blood-lettings, injecting water into theveins, warm and cold bath, in short, every thing that could possi-bly be suggested as a remedial agent, have been adopted with nobetter success.

To ensure effectually the person bitten by a mad dog againstthe consequences, it is strongly recommended, immediately or assoon after the accident as possible, to have the bitten part com-pletely cut out ; after which bleeding should be promoted by warmfomentations, and a cupping-glass applied over the part, until itgive evident marks of its exhausting power. On the removal ofthis glass the wound is to be washed frequently with a weak solu-tion of muriatic acid (forty drops to a pint of water,) and a pieceof lint or rag, moistened in the same, left on the part, and renew-ed as it becomes dry. Should some degree of inflammation ensue,'as most likely will be the case, the solution may then be laid aside,the wound dressed with dry lint, and a copious suppuration pro-moted by means of warm poultices, healing afterwards the woundin the usual way.

During this treatment the patient must take two of the follow-ing pills at bed-time* every night, for three weeks or a month af-ter the accident.

No other plan can ensure safety.

After all that has been said, and the little confidence assigned toany practice but that of early cutting out or cauterizing the part,it is nevertheless always necessary that something should be doneafter the actual commencement of the symptoms of hydrophobia,and every practitioner should be prepared for the adoption of somemode of treatment or other. A modern writer observes, " that ex-perience authorizes the placing confidence in bleeding till the pa-tient faints; on vomitings and, perhaps, on the use of the deadlynightshade ; and on tobacco exhibited as a clyster. That it isprobable advantage would result from the combined employmentof bleeding and vomiting, and purging in the early stage of the dis-

' Take Mercurial Pill,

Powdered Rhubarb,

1 drachm. Extract of Hemlock, 10 grains.

2 scruples. Make 20 nula, to be taken as above.