524 DOGS USED FOR SPORT. 



commendation of any especial drug-, or form of medicine, nor even 

 for any general plan of treatment, after the peculiar symptoms 

 of the disease have once set in. 



Of course those powerful remedial agencies that are in com- 

 mon use among medical men, have been fairly tried ; copious 

 blood letting, mercury, opium, arsenic, sugar of lead, oil of turpen- 

 tine, the cold affusion even ; and not only those, but the stronger 

 poisons, as belladonna, stramonium, prussic acid, white hellebore, 

 strychnia, cantharides, chloroform, ether, and nitrous oxide gas ; 

 and a no less end of less gigantic remedies ; such as alkalies, es- 

 pecially ammonia, preparations of lead, zinc, copper and iron ; 

 electricity and galvanism, tobacco juice, lobelia, guaco, the mineral 

 acids, violent exercise ; and if we take into account the substances 

 administered to the brute also, we may increase the list by the 

 alisma plantago, sentellaria, box, and rue, all of which at one 

 time or another, have been vaunted as successful remedies, vera- 

 trum, sabadilla, vicunas and rattlesnake poison. 



The difficulty of swallowing fluids, and ofttimes of swallowing 

 at all, is a serious obstacle to the use of internal remedies. The 

 injection of medicines into the rectum, under the skin, and in the 

 veins hag been tried. Magendie hoped that he had discovered a 

 cure, in first largely bleeding the patient, and then injecting his 

 patient with a corresponding quantity of warm water; but it has 

 always happened with this, and with other promising experiments, 

 that just as the patient seemed about to recover, he has died. 

 The nervous irritability has in rare cases been relieved by the hy- 

 podermic injection of morphia ; curare has also been tried with 

 more favorable results, and would seem to indicate that it pos- 

 sesses the greatest power of any drug over this disease. If I 

 were the patient, I should urge large injections of curare, as noth- 

 ing can be lost by it, even if this poison be given far more boldly 

 than it has ever been. 



Tracheotomy has been recommended by Mr. Mayo, and nu- 

 merous other physicians. But I should not expect the smallest 

 advantage from the operation. Leaving out the question of spasm 

 of the glottis, the patients do not die oi suffocation, but debilHy. 



As almost every drug that has ever been included in any phar- 

 macopoeia has been administered with the hope of checking the 



