Important: Safety Warning
This page gives first-aid or emergency advice that predates modern medicine and can make an emergency worse. Do not follow it. In any medical emergency, call emergency services and follow current first-aid guidance.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Hydrophobia
A FEW remarks upon this terrible disease will bring our short summary to a close. The first symptoms of the attack are generally a desire for solitude accompanied by some of the signs of distemper, such as peevishness and irritability. When you find your pet hiding in out-of-the-way places and loth to stir, eating anything, no matter how dirty, and drinking greedily, you may expect the poor animal is afflicted by "Hydrophobia," as the disease is popularly and erroneously called. It is not the fear of water but the inability to drink that ails him. The animal will go slouching about, and if not molested or annoyed will probably not bite at first. A dog meandering along the road with lolling tongue with all the symptoms of sickness and depression of spirits, cannot be mistaken. At the last stage of the disease he will fly at anything and tear it, and the dread howling bark is a warning to all within hearing. His throat is swelled, he cannot eat nor drink, and his sufferings are most acute. In his terror and pain he will resent any interference and snap and bite at his best friends.
The best way to treat a bite is by burning with caustic or a hot or white-hot iron which is less painful than a red-hot iron. Stab the wound with this or the caustic pencil, the more the better.