er rabid animal or by other means, a variable time elapses before
the development of any symptoms. This time may be eight days or it may
be several months; it is usually about four weeks. The first symptom is
an irritation of the original wound. This wound, which may have healed
completely, commences to itch until the horse rubs or bites it into a
new sore. The horse then becomes irritable and vicious, and it is
especially susceptible to moving objects, excessive light, noises, the
entrance of an attendant, or any other disturbance will cause the
patient to be on the defensive. It apparently sees imaginary objects;
the slightest noise is exaggerated into threatening violence; the
approach of an attendant or another animal, especially a dog, is
interpreted as an assault and the horse will strike and bite. The
violence on the part of the rabid horse is not for a moment to be
confounded with the fury of the same animal suffering from meningitis or
any other trouble of the brain. But in rabies there is a volition, a
premeditated method, in the attacks which the animal will make, which is
not found in the other diseases. Between the attacks of fury the animal
may become calm for a variable period. The writer attended a case in
which, after a violent attack of an hour, the horse was sufficiently
calm to be walked 10 miles and only developed violence again an hour
after being placed in the new stable. In the period of fury the horse
will bite at the reopened original wound; it will rear and attempt to
break its halter and fastenings; it will bite at the woodwork and
surrounding objects in the stable. If the animal lives long enough it
shows paralytic symptoms and falls to the ground, unable to use two or
more of its extremities, but in the majority of cases in its excesses of
violence it does physical injury to itself. It breaks its jaws in biting
at the manger or fractures other bones in throwing itself on the ground
and dies of hemorrhage or internal injuries. At times throughout the
course of the disease there is an excessive sensibility of the skin
which, if irritated by the touch, will bring on attacks of violence.
Throughout the course of the disease the animal may have appetite and
desire water, but on attempting to swallow has a spasm of the throat
which renders the act impossible. This latter condition, which is common
in all rabid animals, has given the disease the name of hydrophobia
(fear of water).

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