PKRICARDITIS IN THE DOG. • 165 



monial ointment, and the abdomen was bandaged. The food con- 

 sisted of milk and a Httle raw meat. 



This treatment gave immediate rehef. Next day the respirations 

 were only 30 and freer, the pulse was 100, and the appetite returned. 

 The animal took a pint of milk and some meat. On the following 

 days slow improvement continued. 



Recovery was uneventful ; no occasion arose for repeating the 

 puncture, the liquid left in the pericardium and peritoneum becoming 

 reabsorbed. A month later the animal returned home cured. It had 

 quite recovered its appetite, was bright, walked and trotted without 

 showing dyspnoea, and the impulse and sounds of the heart had 

 become normal. We heard somewhat later that the animal had 

 recovered its condition and strength. 



In addition, however, to narrating these two cases, I wish to direct 

 your attention to the principal varieties of pericarditis in the dog, and 

 to teach you the lessons of my own experience. 



Though very generally of secondary character, and due either to 

 tuberculosis or some other infectious disease like pneumonia, rheu- 

 matism, or distemper, pericarditis is sometimes primary, the result of 

 cold or injury. You will rarely see traumatic pericarditis, most of the 

 cases we are called on to treat being attributed to chill. As in 

 pleurisy, pneumonia, and endocarditis, cold is not, however, the sole 

 factor in producing the disease, its action being confined to exciting 

 general disturbance, congestion, etc., which favour and render possible 

 infection of the pericardium by microbes brought from neighbouring 

 or distant organs through the circulation. Pericarditis a frigore is 

 certainly rare, and can only occur in animals predisposed to it by their 

 constitutional condition, though its occurrence is indisputable. You 

 will see it especially in water-spaniels and sporting dogs used in 

 marshy country. 



During March, 1895, I made a post-mortcui examination of a little 

 poodle, in which exudative pericarditis had been produced by baths 

 prescribed for skin disease. A week after commencing treatment the 

 patient suddenly showed very grave symptoms, which were attributed 

 to pleurisy. Bathing was stopped, and the animal treated for the 

 chest affection ; but the treatment proved abortive, and death occurred 

 on the tenth day. The body was brought here. The pleurae and lungs 

 were healthy, but the pericardium was acutely inflamed and contained 

 abundance of a slightly reddish fibrinous liquid, in the precipitate from 

 which I found streptococci. There were no tubercle bacilli, and no 

 tuberculous lesions in any of the organs. 



