Rabies

{i-a’-be-es) [L.]. Ly a, or hydrophobia. The latter term is generally applied to the human disease consequent upon the bite of a rabid dog or other animal. Rabies is an acute infectious disease of animals dependent upon a specific virus, and communicable to man by inoculation. All animals are liable to the disease, but it occurs most frequently in the wolf, the cat, and the dog, and is chiefly propagated by the latter, which is specially susceptible. The nature of the poison is as yet unknown; it has a special affinity for the nervous system, and is found in the secretions, particularly in the saliva. See Hydrophobia. 543