It is all
eminently simple, and tends at least to show that our ancestors after
all were not wholly ignorant of the virtues of cold water. Amongst other
remedies, also, was a medicine composed of cinnabar and musk, an East
Indian specific, and one of powdered Virginian snake-root, gum
asafoetida, and gum camphire, mixed and taken as a bolus. So far, at
least, if the various treatments did little good, they did no great
harm. Brutality began where a person had been bitten by a dog that
really was mad, and when undoubted symptoms of hydrophobia had shown
themselves. Then it was no uncommon practice to deliberately bleed the
unhappy patient to death, or, worse still, to smother him between
mattresses or feather beds. Necessarily, a custom so monstrous opened
wide the door to crimes of violence, and doubtless many a person whose
presence was found to be inconvenient to relatives, or whose permanent
absence would further certain desires or plans of those relatives, was
opportunely found to be suffering from an attack of hydrophobia, and
came to his end miserably in some such fashion as has been indicated.
The popular mind was credulous to an extent inconceivable at the present
day, and the mere accusation of madness was seized on and swallowed with
an avidity that discouraged investigation of individual cases.
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