Rabies

Around the middle of 1892 a disease appeared in Funchal that killed many dogs, and to which some residents of the island are also said to have succumbed. The population was extremely alarmed, for this was a disease completely unknown here, and it attacked not only animals but also some human beings. This natural alarm was heightened by the indecision of Madeiran doctors, who disagreed on the diagnosis, chiefly because the necessary bacteriological tests could not possibly be carried out in Madeira.

At this juncture the local press did important service, not only by calling for vigorous and immediate measures, but also by warning the inhabitants of the dangers of dog bites and of the need to confine the dogs so that they could not pass the disease to any person or other animal.

At the urging of the civil governor of the district at the time, the engineer Luís Merens de Távora, the government in mainland Portugal sent to Madeira the distinguished veterinary surgeon António Roque da Silveira, charged with studying the disease that had appeared here and recommending a means of stamping it out. He arrived in Funchal on 8 October 1892 and began his studies at once, making use, on the very day he landed, of some work already done by inoculating rabbits with an emulsion of the medulla of dogs killed by the disease. His further inoculations, microscopic examinations, lengthy clinical study and other work diligently carried out convinced him that hydrophobia existed in Madeira, although some distinguished Madeiran doctors held that the epizootic among the island’s dogs was not rabies.

Roque da Silveira states that the rabies was imported, and accepts as probable the account of those who say that in May 1892 a foreigner landed in Funchal with two dogs and, on returning aboard a few hours later, was followed by only one of them. It is possible that the dog that went astray here was incubating rabies and that, when the disease broke out, it bit other animals and so transmitted it.

Although the number of victims was not very large, the deaths of seven people who succumbed to the terrible disease of rabies were nevertheless confirmed.

We have no knowledge of that disease having appeared here either before or after this time.

The veterinary surgeon António Roque da Silveira sent the central government a detailed report on the rabies that appeared on this island in 1892, which was published in no. 2 of the 5th year of the Boletim da Direcção Geral da Agricultura, pp. 29–62.