There is a popular belief that the bite of the skunk (Mephitis mephitica) is always rabific. Rev. H. C. Hovey describes a number of cases of infection from this animal,2 and John G. Janeway has reported other instances.3 Both claim that the disease is spontaneous in the skunk, and Mr. Hovey holds, on very insufficient grounds, that the affection is a distinct variety of rabies (rabies mephitica). The facts seem to warrant only the conclusion that skunks in certain districts of Michigan and Kansas have had rabies communicated to them, and follow the rabid impulse to bite other animals and men. The Mephitinæ abound in the Eastern States, but we never hear of them stealing up and biting men or dogs, nor of the latter contracting rabies from skunk-bite. Eastern dogs frequently kill skunks and sustain bites, but do not thereby contract rabies. Even in Kansas this evil influence of the skunk-bite was unknown until 1870, showing that it is not inherent in the climate nor soil, but has been presumably imported. The spontaneity of the affection is assumed, not proved.
2 Amer. Jour. of Science and Art, May, 1874.
3 New York Medical Record, March 13, 1875.
In the above epitome of alleged causes we find nothing proving the spontaneous evolution of rabies. The prevalence of the affection in wolves, foxes, jackals, cats, skunks, etc. proves nothing for spontaneity, more than its existence in the dog. In all these species of animals the malady develops the dread propensity to bite, and thus in all alike provision is made for the perpetuation and propagation of the malady. Unless a previous attack by a rabid animal has been observed, owners usually insist that their dogs have contracted the malady spontaneously, yet a rigid scrutiny will almost always reveal a strong probability, at least, of inoculation. The rabid dog wanders far from home, and sometimes accomplishes wonderful feats of leaping to reach his victim, so that his presence in a district is not even suspected, and animals thought to be safely secluded inside high walls suffer from his fangs. He is more inclined to bite and rush on than to stay and devour, and thus small animals, like the skunk, when bitten may survive to propagate the disease in places to which a dog could not possibly find access. Much circumstantial evidence makes strongly against the theory of spontaneity. Thus, the immunity of the islands of the Elbe in the very midst of a severe and protracted epizoötic, the continued immunity of the Hebrides and of Malta, each famed for its indigenous race of dogs, for long centuries, during which the malady prevailed at frequent intervals on the adjacent mainlands, and the continued exemption of South Africa and of the Australasian and other islands, in the face of the counter-fact that the affection persisted after importation in the West Indies and South America, speak strongly for the doctrine that the introduction of a pre-existing germ is an essential condition of the evolution of the disease. The following statistics of cases which entered the Berlin Veterinary College furnish further corroborative evidence. There entered the college,
| In 9 years, | 1845-53, inclusive, | 278 | rabid dogs. |
| In | 1854, | 4 | rabid dogs. |
| In | 1855, | 1 | rabid dog. |
| In | 1856, | 1 | rabid dog. |
| In 5 years, | 1857-61, inclusive, | 0 | rabid dog. |
The average for each of the first nine years was a fraction less than 31. In the two last of the nine the cases rose to 68 and 82, and this led early in 1854 to an order for the muzzling of all dogs, which was rigidly enforced by the police. The disease was promptly suppressed, the two cases in the two succeeding years being probably due to infected kennels or to importation from without. The results in Eldena (Fuertenberg) and Holland (Van Capelle) are equally conclusive. The inefficiency of some orders for the muzzling of dogs makes nothing against these facts. A law on the statute-book is not always a law in force, as I saw in Alfort and Lyons in 1863; the dogs wore their muzzles only in honor of the periodic visits of the commissionnaire of police, and rabies prevailed.
The great majority of competent observers of to-day deny, or at least strongly doubt, the occurrence of the disease apart from inoculation. Without assuming to decide the question for all times and places, it may be safely asserted that there is no sufficient proof of such an occurrence in any recent time.4
4 Mr. Sâzé, a former student, informed me that boys in Japan produce what is believed to be canine rabies by administering to dogs a fungus (bukeryo) found growing on a coniferous tree. The dogs do not all seem to die, but are usually killed by way of precaution. The symptoms are those of delirium, with a propensity to bite, and the disease is assumed to be communicable, though no facts are given to show that it is so. This popular fancy has all the air of a popular fallacy, but as the counterfeit attests the genuine, it shows the familiarity of the Japanese with true rabies.
The contagion of rabies is usually resident in the saliva, but is by no means confined to that product. Paul Bert found the bronchial mucus virulent in dogs in which the saliva was non-virulent. The flesh has conveyed the disease when eaten, though probably only because of sores or abrasions on the alimentary tract. Smith records the death of negroes in Peru from eating rabid cows;5 Schenkius, that of persons who ate of a rabid pig; and Gohier and Lafosse have infected dogs by feeding the flesh of rabid dogs and ruminants; Rossi and Hertwig have separately induced rabies by inoculating sound animals with portions of nerves from rabid ones. No absolute proof can be adduced that the disease has been conveyed through consumption of the milk. Cases quoted to show its virulence are open to the objection that the dam probably licked the offspring. A similar uncertainty attaches to the spermatic fluid. Women are alleged to have acquired hydrophobia by coitus, but no such case can be adduced among animals, though rabid males have often had connection with healthy females. The alleged cases in women were therefore probably the result of an excited imagination or caused by virus introduced through some other channel. The breath and perspiration seem incapable of becoming media for the transmission of the disease. The blood was supposed to be non-virulent by Breschet, Majendie, Dupuytren, Blaine, Youatt, etc., but has been shown by Eckel and Lafosse to be rabific. Eckel successfully inoculated the blood of a rabid he-goat on a sheep and that of a rabid man on a dog. Lafosse accomplished the same in one of three attempts by inoculation from dog to dog. The blood is probably only virulent in the advanced stages of the disease, and its virulence implies the virulence of all vascular tissues.
5 Peru as it Is.