300 VETERINARY HYGIENE 



clothes and hands. Veterinary practitioners are less liable to do 

 so as they would wash their hands after manual examination of 

 suspected subjects. Dog shows act as distributing centres, and 

 the risk involved in the handling of each dog by the veterinary 

 surgeon as it enters the showroom is a real one. The excitement 

 and fatigue of a show predispose susceptible animals to infection. 

 Dogs returning from stud, hound puppies from their " walkers," 

 and boarders from dogs' homes often carry the disease with them. 

 Infective dogs running loose on the streets are probably the most 

 common distributors. H. Gray* considers that mediate methods 

 play only a very small part in the distribution of the disease. 



PREVENTIVE MEASURES. All dogs suspected of having or 

 known to have recently recovered from distemper should be care- 

 fully isolated and not allowed to cohabit with other dogs for a 

 month after they have apparently recovered. Dogs sent to shows 

 or to kennels for stud purposes should be accepted only with a 

 written guarantee that the premises from which they come are 

 free from disease and have been so for at least one month. Dogs 

 returning from stud or show should be kept in quarantine at the 

 owner's kennels for one month. Veterinary surgeons examining 

 dogs at shows should exercise the greatest care in handling animals, 

 and should immediately wash their hands in disinfectant after 

 examining a suspicious case. Hound puppies returning from the 

 " walker " should be isolated for a month and the kennels should 

 be clear of disease before the puppies are admitted. Veterinary 

 infirmaries should have a ward set apart for distemper cases, and the 

 patients therein should be attended to last. Special overalls should 

 be worn while attending the distemper ward, and the hands carefully 

 cleansed afterwards. Thermometers should be washed as a 

 matter of routine. Kennels, if properly constructed, are easily 

 freed from infection by the application of hot water, soap, and any 

 suitable disinfectant. Feeding utensils and other appliances must 

 be cleansed and disinfected. Dogs' coats for hospital purposes 

 should be made of flannelette of simple and inexpensive design 

 and destroyed after recovery or demise of the patient. The wood 

 work of kennels may with advantage be painted with creosote paint 

 after the preliminary scrubbing. 



Several methods of vaccination against distemper have been 

 introduced. Jenner noted the resemblance between distemper and 

 smallpox and considered it to be canine variola, and advised 

 vaccination with cow-pox virus, but the method was found to be 

 useless. Phisalix introduced a method of vaccination which was 

 * Wallis-Hoare, System. Vet. Med., Vol. I., p. 654, 1913. 



