Hydrophobia in dogs and other animals : and the sanitary precautions against its transmission to the human race.

  • Russel, Charles P.
Date:
[1874?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hydrophobia in dogs and other animals : and the sanitary precautions against its transmission to the human race. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Pompey the Great that the rabific poison first began to manifest itself among human beings. Andreas of Caryste, a physician of the Alexandrian school, has left a work upon the disease, which he terms KvvoA.vd6oi. Coelius Aurelianus, already mentioned, a distin- guished physician of the reign of Trajan or Adrian, or perhaps as late as the fifth century, is the first to furnish an accurate de- tailed description of the affection in man, and of the various contro- versies regarding it. He mentions it as being endemic among animals in Caria and Crete. About the same period the affection is treated of by a number of other medical men. ^tius, a Mesopotamian doctor of the sixth century, is the first to furnish anything like an accurate description of rabies in dogs. A century later the physician Paulus ^gineta gives another excellent account of hydrophobia. Among the Arabian physicians Yahia-Ebn-Serapion, Rhazes Africanus, and Avicenna mention the disease, the last terming it simply cams rabidi morsusy Since the time of Paulus ^gineta we find the affection described by numerous European writers. Fleming recounts the following curious story of a case of rabies in a bear, recorded about the year 900. At that time immense forests covered Burgundy, Maconnais, Brescia, and part of Lyonnais, which were infested with wolves, wild boars, bears, and other ferocious animals. One day a bear, following the course of the river Saone, at last arrived at the quay at Lyons. Everybody fled except some boat- men, who, armed with heavy sticks, attempted to kill it. The bear, little intimidated by their number, rushed among them, and bit about twenty. Six of these persons were shortly afterwards smothered in consequence of fearful madness. The other fourteen, however, had thrown themselves into the river to escape the animal's attack, and, it is affirmed, were thus preserved from the effects of the poison by its being washed out of their wounds. In 1026 an outbreak of rabies among dogs in Wales is mentioned in the laws of Howel the Good. From that time it appears to have been well known in England, numerous specific remedies, charms, and incantations against it being recommended in old Anglo-Saxon manuscripts still extant. One of the earliest reports of scientific interest refers to wolves afflicted with hydrophobia in Franconia, Germany, in 1271. More than thirty shepherds and peasants fell victims to their attacks. In 1500 Spain suffered from the ravages of canine madness. In 1532 a rabid