Should the patient however be seized with madness, care should be taken that those about him have no wounds where the least of his spittle may be introduced; and that the deplorable patient is rendered incapable to make any wounds or mischief on himself, or those who attend him; as he will be apt to snap and bite about him like a dog. He should be sewed up in a hammock, to which his arms should also be confined: in this method he may, by help of a tackle, be plunged up and down in the sea, but not his head under water. This is far superior to the unnatural and cruel way of smothering with beds, where the patient has no chance at all left.
The subject is melancholy; but, willing to contribute all the relief in my power to the distressed, I have been insensibly led on; and summed up all that might promise success. Innumerable are the remedies delivered to us, but few prove successful if the case be real.
Of all, I never knew any meet with better success than where mercury was concerned; and as I have been so fortunate as to have experienced the exalted virtue of that great medicine, in this and other deplorable cases, I stand so much upon the firmer grounds, to recommend it beyond any other medicine that I am acquainted with at present.
To conclude, I think it requisite to observe, that, dreadful as the bite of a mad dog is, when the poison has infected the unfortunate patient, yet this unlucky accident happens much seldomer, than mankind from the dread of the misfortune, are apt to apprehend it does. Many nostrums are published as specifics, and their virtue artfully confirmed, with cases of being bit by dogs, that had however not the least symptom of madness; and thence cures enumerated, that could have no foundation on reality; by which artifices much mischief has been done in real cases. Due observance should therefore be had to the state of the dog that has given the wound, and the circumstances attending; that either the patient may not be brought into unnecessary pain, or that proper and substantial remedies may not be neglected.
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We now proceed to the more internal diseases; in which, the various steps that we intend to take of restoring health again, must be guided with the greatest caution, as the seat of the malady is hid from our external examination.