Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/189

Rh in the very country where it was most in vogue. A rabid dog, near the village of Trieglitz, Prussia, bit a shepherd's dog, which was shortly afterward seized with rabies, and in turn communicated it to several cows. Both of these dogs were proved, by authentic certificates, to have undergone, when pups, the prescribed operation. The sanitary physicians of the district assembled to investigate the subject, and numerous instances were brought to their notice of hydrophobia having been imparted to both animals and men by dogs whose Tollwurms had been extirpated in the most approved manner. These facts led to the suppression of the corps of operators. Subsequently the authorities of the province of Detmold convoked a similar commission of investigation, the result of whose inquiries fully confirmed the conclusions previously reached.

This idea never obtained much credence among the English. Dr. Samuel Johnson spoke of the reputed worm in his expressive manner as "a substance—nobody knows what, extracted—nobody knows why."

According to a report of Dr. Armand to the Paris Academy of Sciences, the same practice still exists in Thrace, and it is described by Auzias Turenne, in the "Receuil de Médecine" for 1869, as then prevailing in Turkey and Moldo-Wallachia. Fleming states that it is quite common in Roumania, and Ramon de Sagra alludes to it as being popular in Spain. It prevails to some extent in our own country, especially in the South.

Columella, a contemporary of Pliny, in a work entitled "De Re Rustica," informs us that in his time it was believed among shepherds that, if, on the fortieth day after a pup's birth, the last bone of the tail be bitten off, the sinew will follow with it; after which the tail will cease growing, and the animal will remain secure from madness. This brutal mutilation is still sometimes practised by dog-fanciers, particularly in England, where the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals have obtained several convictions against those resorting to it.

The ancients ascribed peculiar virtues to a variety of stone called ammonis cornu, which was supposed to possess the property of extracting the virus from wounds inflicted by mad dogs or venomous reptiles. Pliny alludes to it under the above name, and it has since received the appellation ammonite, both terms referring to its resemblance in shape to the horns which surrounded the head of Jupiter Ammon. It has also, in more modern times, been popularly known as the mad-stone and the snake-stone. Scientifically speaking, it is the fossil petrifaction of an extinct mollusk closely resembling the nautilus, having a spiral, symmetrical, and chambered shell, varying in size from that of a small bean to that of a large cart-wheel. In the East Indies and China it has for ages enjoyed the reputation mentioned.