Dogs and Rabies

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 1, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 22.

TWO children in California have recently died from the bite of dogs that were afflicted with hydrophobia. This has led the State Board of Health to inaugurate a campaign to have as many dogs killed as possible, and all the rest of them muzzled.

There was an outbreak of hydrophobia recently among dogs, coyotes, cattle, and sheep, in Lake County, Oregon; and in view of such epidemics of this very dangerous disease, our State Board is urgent that such a high license shall be placed upon dogs that all useless curs will be destroyed, and that all others will be so cared for as not to become a menace to the public health.

Dr. Wilbur A. Sawyer, director of the State Hygienic Laboratory at the University of California, urges “the importance of immediate and thorough cauterization of the bites of rabid animals, and of the avoidance of delay before the administration of the Pasteur treatment.”

Science has enabled the physician in this time, if given a fair chance, to stamp out epidemics and to save individuals from maladies that half a century ago were quite uniformly fatal; but regardless of all of our advancements, there is an increasing amount of work to do in meeting the inroads of epidemics and contagious diseases. A great deal of this is due to the fact that the average individual refuses to avail himself of proper assistance, and furthermore he does not co-operate with the men who are working so earnestly to cope with the ravages of disease.