Page:Lives of British Physicians.djvu/313

 PARRY. 291 rliages, dropsies, exanthemata, and other cutaneous eruptions, and even the generality of nervous affections, there is one circumstance, in common, which is an over-distension of certain blood ves- sels, arising-, probably, from their relative want of tone, or the due contraction of their muscular fibres." In the year 1814, Dr. Parry published Cases of Tetanus and Rabies Contagiosa, having adopted the latter term in preference to that of hydrophobia, which he considered an improper designation, as applicable only to a single symptom of this formi- dable disease, " without the existence of which the patient would as certainly, and probably as soon die, as when it exists in the greatest degree." He showed that the part primarily affected is not the pharynx, oesophagus, or stomach, but the upper portion of the trachea, together with other parts of the apparatus concerned in the function of respira- tion. He considered the characteristic circum- stances to be a local spasm, and convulsive action of the respiratory organs ; — an inordinate action of the voluntary muscles, whether from a per- verted function of the brain, or a want of power in the muscles themselves precisely to obey the will. There cannot, he thinks, be a greater mistake than to suppose, either that the fever of hydro- phobia is of the inflammatory kind, or that its peculiar symptom arises from local inflammation of the fauces, the cardia, or any other part. While from experience and analogy he discovers no guide to practice, and believes that all means have hitherto been ineffectual in the true canine hydrophobia, which he considers to be the effect u 2