Observations on hydrophobia, produced by the bite of a mad dog, or other rabid animal : with an examination of the various theories and methods of cure, existing at the present day, and an inquiry into the merit of specific remedies : also a method of treatment best adapted to the brute creation : in a series of letters to a friend / by James Thatcher.

  • Thacher, James, 1754-1844.
Date:
1812
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on hydrophobia, produced by the bite of a mad dog, or other rabid animal : with an examination of the various theories and methods of cure, existing at the present day, and an inquiry into the merit of specific remedies : also a method of treatment best adapted to the brute creation : in a series of letters to a friend / by James Thatcher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    terminates in the stomach. Dr. Seleg thinks, that it is seated in the par vagum and intercostal nerves, for most of the symptoms happen where these nerves are interspersed. As to the difficulty in swallowing, generally believed to accompany dread of water, Dr. Vaughan treats it as a misrepresentation, as well as that the oesophagus with the muscles subservient to deglutition are especially concerned in this disease. The principal foundation of the evil, he thinks, rests on a morbid sensibility both of the external and in- ternal fauces. . For the sight of a liquid or the appli- cation of any substance to the internal fauces, but more especially of a fluid, instantly excites the most painful feelings. Nay, the same symptoms are pro- duced by touching the external fauces with a fluid, or by the contact of cold air with these parts, and nearly in as great degree. But a solid or a fluid substance being conveyed into the oesophagus, the transit into the stomach is accomplished with little or no impedi- ment ; so that in fact the difficulty is surmounted before the patient be engaged in the action of swallow- ing. Nor is the excruciating pain, which never fails to be the companion of every attempt to drink, felt in the fauces and throat: it is, he says, f* at the scro- biculus cordis, to which the sufferer applies his hand. From this last circumstance, therefore, from the pres- ence of the risus sardomcus, from the muscles of the abdomen being forcibly contracted, and from the sense of suffocation, which seems to threaten the pa- tient with immediate death, Dr. Vaughan has been