Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1894 — Have They Got Hydrophobia? [ARTICLE]

Have They Got Hydrophobia?

Intelligence was received Saturday, of a strange and fatal disease that was prevailing among the cattle Of Frank Hays, of Barkley tp. He had then lost three cows with it in quick succession, and two more were sick. When first taken the cows refuse to eat for a day or two and then go wildly crazy, and die, apparently from exhaustion, in a few hours.' “They will run at anything, fiom a hen up,” is what an observer said who saw some of the cows in the Crazy stage of their disease.

Some two weeks or so before the cows began to be sick Mr. Hays’ dog, which had previously been very mild in behavior, attacked the cows of his own motion, and was known to have bitten one or two of those that afterwards died. Mr. Hays undertook to whip the dog, and it bit him on the hand. The dog then disappeared and has never been seen since.

'AH these circumstances certainly point very strongly to the conclusion that the dog had hydrophobia, and transmitted it to the cows. And it may be added further that Dr. J. H. Honan, the veterinary surgeon, who was in town Saturday, after hearing the case, pronounced the symptoms like those of hydrophobia. Naturally Mr. Hays’ friends are very apprehensive as tp what may be the result of the bite he received.