Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1907 — FEW DOGS GO MAD. [ARTICLE]

FEW DOGS GO MAD.

Manx Authorities Have Never Identified Case of Rabiea. The Woman’s Pennsylvania S. P. C. A. Is out with a timely and valuable statement calculated to prevent unnecessary alarm and suffering of human beings as* well as of animals. It is commended by many of our famous | physicians. A part of It follows here- ! with: U has been observed with regret that ! numerous sensational Btorles coneem- | ing alleged mad dogs and the terrible | results to human beings bitten by them 1 are published from time to time. Such i accounts frighten people Into various nervous disorders and cause brutal treatment of animals suspected of madness; and yet there- is upon record a great mass of testimony from .physicians asserting the extreme rarity of hydrophobia even in' the dog, while many medical men of wide experience are of the opinion thnt if It develops | tremely rare occasions; thnt the con- ! dltlon of hysterical excitement In man described as “hydrophobia” Is merely a series of symptoms, such dread being caused by realistic reports acting upon the Imaginations of persons scratched 'or bitten by animals suspected of rabies. - The late Dr. Hiram Corson, whose practice extended over a period of sev- ! enty years, during which time he searched dllgently for the disease In man or animal, wrote under date of January 18, 1890: “I have never had a real case of hydrophobia.” » | Dr. Thralll Green, a physician like Dr. Corson, accurate In observation, ! careful In statement,- and whose prne--1 tire also extended over a long period, j wrote under date of January 28, 1890: “I have never bad a case of hydrophobia, nor have I eser seen a case In the practice of other physicians.” Dr. Matthew Woods, who has been In quest of the disease for twenty 1 years, and who during two summers personally visited every case reported In Philadelphia, asserts that he never saw hydrophobia either In man or animal, and although six years ago, at ths conclusion of a paper on the subject read before a large audience, he offered SIOO to any person bringing him such a patient, yet so far no one has claimed the reward. Dr. Charles W. Dulles, who has corresponded on the subject with most of Dm distinguished medical men of Ku-

rope, a physician familiar both with the literature of rabies, the history of Pasteur and the Institutions called by his name, and who In addition has performed the almost ineredable task of Investigating either personally or by correspondence, with the physicians or others in attendance, every case reported in the newspapers of the United States for the past sixteen years, believes that hydrophobia is extremely rare, having after sixteen years of investigation failed to find a single case on record that can be conclusively proved to have resulted from the bite of a dog.