THE VETERINARIAN; OR, MONTHLY JOURNAL OF VETERINARY SCIENCE, FOR 1838. VOL. XI.-VOL. VI. NEW SERIES. EDITED BY W. YOU ATT, Late Lecturer on Veterinary Medicine at University College; Veterinary Surgeon to the Zoological ASSISTED BY PROFESSOR DICK, AND MESSRS. KARKEEK AND PERCIVALL. Ars Veterinaria post medicinam secunda est.-Vegetius. BIBL LONDON: PRINTED BY COMPTON AND RITCHIE, MIDDLE STREET, CLOTH FAIR; PUBLISHED BY LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMAN, PATERNOSTER ROW. The Post Mortem Appearances of Rabies in the Dog.-The Tongue.-Sublingual Glands.- Fauces. Tonsils.—Epi glottis. Trachea.- Bronchi.-Lungs.-Heart.-Esophagus and Stomach. Gentlemen,-I ALWAYS approach this division of our subject-the post mortem appearances of rabies-I will not say with fear, but with a serious and subdued spirit. A fellow-creature has been bitten, perhaps severely lacerated, by a strange dog. The animal was immediately destroyed; and the account which you can get of him while living is exceedingly unsatisfactory, perhaps contradictory. I have again and again beard the owner of a rabid dog, as he was afterwards proved to be, stoutly maintain, and from honest conviction, that there was "nothing in the world" the matter with the animal; and I have seen others, when there was not the slightest occasion for alarm, tormenting themselves with unfounded but distressing fears with regard to their own safety or the welfare of those whom they loved. The carcass is sent to the veterinary surgeon, as the man who, from education and habit, is most likely to be able to decide the question. I will not ask whether he is well instructed in these matters: I will suppose him to be so. Whatever difficulties attend the early stages of rabies, the disease is recognized plainly enough when fully developed. Are the lesions which it produces, the traces which it leaves when life has fled, as easily to be read? In the great majority of cases I answer, without hesitation, yes! There is no difficulty about the matter. The medical man, however, will often be at your elbow, judging of the dog from what he sees in the human being; and he will occasionally express some dissatisfaction at the conclusion which you draw. He has never had opportunity to study or perhaps to witness the group of lesions which, often presented to you, many of them unsatisfactory alone, but continually associated together, force conviction on your mind. You will not have so much to struggle with as your predecessors had fifteen or twenty years ago. When you have shewn to the surgeon standing by the peculiar appearance of the tongue, and of the larynx, and of the pleural membrane, and of the stomach, you will not be mortified, half insulted, by his addressing you, "Well, sir, and what of all this?-There is a certain degree of glossitis, laryngitis to an intenser degree, an affection of the serous membrane which I have seen a hundred times, and a species of gastritis which, perhaps, I have not seen so often, but in which I do not recognize any thing very extraordinary. I see all these lesions, but not one of them was sufficient to produce death. Where are the specific lesions of Rabies?" In the case of the veterinary examiner to whom I referred in the first lecture, there were all these appearances, and the stomach was nearly filled with horrible indigestible matter. Joshua Brookes carried that stomach home, and preserved it in his museum as a fine specimen of the peculiar state of this organ in rabies. The other gentleman stoutly maintained to the last that there was no rabies at all. You will not at this time of day witness many scenes like this; but to such an extent is it still the opinion of medical men that there are no evident or constant lesions, that you may occasionally be placed in somewhat unpleasant circumstances. My advice to you in such case is, " do not give an opinion too hastily; but, your mind once made up, respectfully maintain your ground. Above all, do not be beaten from this position, that although in many cases you are at once decided by the appearance which a certain organ presents, yet, in a great many more, you are influenced by the grouping of the lesions, rather than by the intensity of any one of them." Do I, then, mean to say that it is usually a very straightforward course which the veterinary practitioner has to pursue that the lesions are so manifest that he who runs may read? With regard to the majority of cases, I again answer yes! but on the other hand, it has occasionally been difficult to decide. It has been a mere inclination of opinion. The history of the case during life has been anxiously inquired into, and even, after all, the case has been somewhat doubtful, and the application of the knife or the caustic has been had recourse to as a measure of precaution rather than of necessity. During an absence from town of some weeks' continuance, a dog was brought to my house late in the evening. Its death was evidently not far distant, and no judgment could be formed of the nature of the disease either from the inspection of the animal or the history of the case. It was sent away with some trifling medicine, and it died in the course of the night. It belonged to a lady, whose son, a surgeon, discovered that it had slightly bitten his sister on the day but one before its death. He immediately brought it again to my residence, and a careful examination of the dog was made by my assistant, the young surgeon standing by. There was nothing that excited suspicion in the mind of either of them, and no operation was performed, nor was any thing said to disturb the mind of the young lady. A few weeks after my return I was summoned to attend a medical consultation. It had respect to this young lady, who was in a state of high nervous excitation-in fact, she was becoming hydrophobous, and she died. I have no right to condemn either of these young men, except that I think I should have applied the caustic to the wound, in order to make assurance doubly sure: but I introduce this history in order to impress it on your minds, that although, in the vast majority of cases, there will be no difficulty in coming to a right decision, yet a few may occur that present a deceptive character, and that it behoves you at all times to conduct these examinations with much caution, and with a serious impression of the danger of giving an erroneous opinion. Method of Examination.-In conducting these examinations I have been in the habit of making a free, and continuous incision through the integument from the symphisis of the jaw-bones to that of the pubis. I then throw the integument back on either side, continuing the dissection beneath the scapulæ, and thus exposing the parietes of the abdomen, the whole of the thorax, and the external part of the muscles of the neck. An incision along the linea alba, and a slanting one on each side of the short ribs, exposes the contents of the abdomen. With a stronger scalpel I remove the sternum, and three or four inches of the ribs on either side, bringing the contents of the thorax into view; and then cutting through the trachea a little above its bifurcation, and including the oesophagus in the incision, and separating them from the cellular texture above, and dividing the os hyoides with a stout pair of scissors, I continue the incision round the inner surface of the inferior maxillary bone, until I can introduce my finger, and draw out the tongue between the branches of the jaw. The knife is readily passed round the remaining anterior portion of the inner surface of the jaw, and the |