6o Veterinary Medicine. 



A most important element in the treatment is a vegetable diet 

 with or without milk, to obviate excessive production of uric acid. 

 Anything which will disagree and produce gastric or intestinal 

 fermentations with toxins must be carefully guarded against and 

 these will differ in different individuals. 



Stallions and other excitable males, and females ma}^ often be 

 cured by castration. Patients should be very carefully guarded 

 against all sources of excitement, reports of guns, sight of loco- 

 motives or automobiles, waving flags, instrumental music, 

 sudden exposure to siuishine or other bright light, reflection 

 from v.'ater, snow, or ice, the contrast of dark shadows, as of 

 trees, alternating with bright light, etc. Dogs, becoming ex- 

 cited at a show, may have a convulsion if not removed, and 

 much more so in presence of another dog in a fit. 



A surgical operation often places the disease in abeyance for 

 many months, but, unless in the case of the removal of a dis- 

 eased organ vvliich has acted as a factor, this is not permanent. 

 Hence in man transient benefit has been secured from operations 

 on the eyes, the brain, the testicles, the ovaries, etc. In local 

 (Jacksonian) epilepsy, which can be traced to a definite cortical 

 area in the brain, the trephining of the skull and the excision of 

 the cortex at that point, has given temporary relief, with a local 

 palsy, but too often the irritation from the resulting cicatrix has 

 in time aroused the disorder anew. Even independently of the 

 removal of the cortex, the trephining has been successfully re- 

 sorted to, by savage as well as civilized peoples, securing a tem- 

 porary relief. Though not in practice in veterinary medicine it 

 seems as if tliis were even more applicable than in man. It 

 would be full}' justified if it preserved for a year or more an 

 animal in usefulness which must otherwise be destroyed, even if 

 the disease should return at the end of this time. 



Plunge or douche baths (60° to 70° F.) and rubbing dry will 

 often tone up the nervous system, and a course of bitters, or iron, 

 or both, may prove valuable. An out-door life and moderate 

 muscular exercise are important. 



During a convulsion the animal should be freed from all 

 harness, halters, girths, etc., that would impair respiration, the 

 jaws may be kept apart with a cloth to prevent biting the tongue, 

 and the animal held with head and neck in natural position. 



