When there are no solid indigesta, but a fluid composed principally of vitiated bile or extravasated blood, there will be a strong indication of the presence of rabies. When, also, there are in the duodenum and jejunum small portions of indigesta, the detection of the least quantity will be decisive. The remainder has been ejected by vomit; and inquiry should be made of the nature of the matter that has been discharged.
inflammation of rabies is of a peculiar character in the stomach. It is generally confined to the summits of the folds of the stomach, or it is most intense there. On the summits of the rugæ there are effusions of bloody matter, or spots of ecchymosis, presenting an appearance almost like crushed black currants. There may be only a few of them; but they are indications of the evil that has been effected.
From appearances that present themselves in the intestines, the bladder, the blood-vessels, or the brain, no conclusion can be drawn; they are simply indications of inflammation.
now rapidly, and for a little while, retrace our steps. What is the cause of this fatal disease, that has so long occupied our attention? It is the saliva of a rabid animal received into a wound, or on an abraded surface. In horses, cattle, sheep, swine, and the human being, it is caused by inoculation alone; but, according to some persons, it is produced spontaneously in other animals.
I will suppose that a wound by a rabid dog is inflicted. The virus is deposited on or near its surface, and there it remains for a certain indefinite period of time. The wound generally heals up kindly; in fact, it differs in no respect from a similar wound inflicted by the teeth of an animal in perfect health. Weeks and months, in some cases, pass on, and there is nothing to indicate danger, until a degree of itching in the cicatrix of the wound is felt. From its long-continued presence as a foreign body, it may have rendered the tissue, or nervous fibre connected with it, irritable and susceptible of impression, or it may have attracted and assimilated to itself certain elements, and rabies is produced.
The virus does not appear to have the same effect on every animal. Of four dogs bitten by, or inoculated from, one that is rabid, three, perhaps, would display every symptom of the disease. Of four human beings, not more than one would become rabid. John Hunter used to say not more than one in twenty; but that is probably erroneous. Cattle appear to have a greater chance of escape, and sheep a still greater chance.
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