l»t;ERPERAL FITS. 3G3 



has been made, the ergot must be continued in smaller doses, or 

 perhaps suspended for a while ; but, if all progress is evidently 

 suspended, recoui-se must be had to the hook or the forceps. By 

 gentle but continued manipulation much may be done, especially 

 when the muzzle of the puppy can be brought into the passage. 

 Little force as possible must be used, and the foetus be but 

 little broken. Many a valuable animal is destroyed by the undue 

 application of force. If the animal seems to be losing strength, 

 a small quantity of laudanum and ether may be administered. 

 The patience of bitches in labor is extreme, says Mr. Blaine ; and 

 their distress, if not relieved, is most striking and affecting. Their 

 look at such times is particularly expressive and apparently im- 

 ploring. When the pupping is protracted, and the young ones 

 are evidently dead, the mother may be saved, if none of the pup- 

 pies have been broken. In process of time the different puppies 

 may, one after anothet, be extracted ; but when violence has been 

 used at the commencement, or almost at any part of the process, 

 death will surely follow. 



PUERPERAL FITS. 



Nature proportions the power and resources of the mother to 

 the wants of her offspring. In her wild undomesticated state she 

 is able to suckle her progeny to the full time; but, in the artificial 

 state in which we have placed her, we shorten the interval be- 

 tween each period of parturition, we increase the number of her 

 young ones at each birth, we diminish her natural powers of 

 affording them nutriment, and we give her a degree of irritability 

 which renders her whole system liable to be excited and deranged 

 by causes that would otherwise be harmless. Fits ultimately follow. 

 Place the sufferer in a bath, temperature 96°, and cover her with the 

 water, her head excepted. It will be surprising to see how soon 

 the simple application of this equable temperament will quiet 

 down the erethism of the excited system. In ten minutes, or a 

 quarter of an hour, she may be taken out of the bath evidently 



