Dr. Unanue
States That Hydrophobia Was First Known In South
America In 1803:
This statement is corroborated by Azara
and Ulloa having never heard of it in their time.
Dr. Unanue
says that it broke out in Central America, and slowly
travelled southward. It reached Arequipa in 1807; and it is
said that some men there, who had not been bitten, were
affected, as were some negroes, who had eaten a bullock
which had died of hydrophobia. At Ica forty-two people thus
miserably perished. The disease came on between twelve
and ninety days after the bite; and in those cases where it
did come on, death ensued invariably within five days. After
1808, a long interval ensued without any cases. On inquiry,
I did not hear of hydrophobia in Van Diemen's Land, or in
Australia; and Burchell says, that during the five years he
was at the Cape of Good Hope, he never heard of an instance
of it. Webster asserts that at the Azores hydrophobia has
never occurred; and the same assertion has been made with
respect to Mauritius and St. Helena. [2] In so strange a disease
some information might possibly be gained by considering
the circumstances under which it originates in distant climates;
for it is improbable that a dog already bitten, should
have been brought to these distant countries.
At night, a stranger arrived at the house of Don Benito,
and asked permission to sleep there. He said he had been
wandering about the mountains for seventeen days, having
lost his way.
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