with your finger, so as to insure immediate vomiting, and the consequent ejection of the offending substance.
289. Should my child be bitten by a dog supposed to be mad, what ought to be done?
Instantly well rub for the space of five or ten seconds—seconds, not minutes—a stick of nitrate of silver (lunar caustic) into the wound. The stick of lunar caustic should be pointed, like a cedar-pencil for writing, in order the more thoroughly to enter the wound. This, if properly done directly after the bite, will effectually prevent hydrophobia. A stick of pointed nitrate of silver, in a case, ready for use, may be procured of any respectable chemist. The nitrate of silver acts not only as a caustic to the part, but it appears effectually to neutralize the poison, and thus by making the virus perfectly innocuous is a complete antidote. If it be either the lip, or the parts near the eye, or the wrist, that have been bitten, it is far preferable to apply the caustic than to cut the part out; as the former is neither so formidable, nor so dangerous, nor so disfiguring as the latter, and yet it is equally as efficacious. I am indebted to the late Mr. Youatt, the celebrated veterinary surgeon, for this valuable antidote or remedy for the prevention of the most horrible, heart-*rending, and incurable disease known. Mr. Youatt had an immense practice among dogs as well as among horses. He was a keen observer of disease, and a dear lover of his profession, and he had paid great attention to rabies—dog madness. He and his assistants had been repeatedly bitten by rabid dogs; but knowing that he was in possession of an infallible preventive remedy, he never dreaded the wounds inflicted either upon himself or upon his assistants. Mr. Youatt never knew lunar caustic, if properly and immediately applied, to fail. It is, of course, only a preventive. If hydrophobia be once developed in
