684 THE AMERICAN BOOK OF THE DOG. 



an injection every two or three days, to obviate the tend- 

 ency to brain trouble, which exists in all severe cases. 



When beef -tea and milk are vomited, scraped raw beef 

 should be relied upon. It should be rolled up in the hand 

 and given in pill form. Even this is sometimes vomited. 

 If so, the nourishment for a time should be limited to the 

 whites of raw eggs, which practically require no digestion 

 and are almost immediately absorbed by the stomach. 

 A table-spoonful, or more, may be given every hour. If 

 vomiting still persists, twenty grains of the subnitrate of 

 bismuth should be given every three or four hours. It can 

 be mixed with the whites of eggs. 



No remedy has ever yet been discovered which will 

 arrest distemper. The disease is self -limited, and must run 

 its course; recovery may be expected if no accidents in the 

 way of complications occur. In other words, distemper in 

 itself is not a very fatal disease, and the greatest danger to 

 be apprehended is from associate diseases developed during 

 its course. In the way of treatment, the first essential is 

 good nursing; and that is really about all that is needed to 

 pull the majority of patients through. In fact, were it 

 solely depended upon, infinitely fewer deaths would occur 

 in distemper. Drugging, however, is the rule, and undoubt- 

 edly a large proportion of the dogs which die with this 

 disease are actually killed by the indiscriminate use of 

 medicines. 



It is absolutely impossible to define, with anything like 

 clearness, a medicinal treatment for distemper. No remedy 

 should be addressed to the disease itself, but where one is 

 used it should be to control unfavorable symptoms which 

 have arisen. In other words, it is the patient, not the 

 disease, which should be treated; and while in some 

 instances drugs assist much, they alone can never cure. 

 Another thing, non -professionals are on dangerous ground 

 while using them. The best advice which we can give is, 

 confine your treatment to nursing. Unfortunately, how- 

 ever, there are many who have an overweening confidence 

 in drugs and will insist upon using them, so we shall briefly 



