Ever since I was born I've had dogs snap at me and
stick their teeth in my flesh; and I've never had a symptom of
hydrophobia, and never intend to have. I believe half the people that
are bitten by dogs frighten themselves into thinking they are fatally
poisoned. I was reading the other day about the policemen in a big city
in England that have to catch stray dogs, and dogs supposed to be mad,
and all kinds of dogs, and they get bitten over and over again, and
never think anything about it. But let a lady or a gentleman walking
along the street have a dog bite them, and they worry themselves till
their blood is in a fever, and they have to hurry across to France to
get Pasteur to cure them. They imagine they've got hydrophobia, and
they've got it because they imagine it. I believe if I fixed my
attention on that right thumb of mine, and thought I had a sore there,
and picked at it and worried it, in a short time a sore would come, and
I'd be off to the doctor to have it cured. At the same time dogs have no
business to bite, and I don't recommend any one to get bitten."
"But, uncle," said Miss Laura, "isn't there such a thing as
hydrophobia?"
"Oh, yes; I dare say there is.
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