186 GENERAL DISEASES. 



complete at the end of the third week. In cases running a fatal course 

 death usually occurs before the fifteenth day. Chorea and paralysis are 

 two important affections consequent upon certain attacks of distemper; 

 the latter usually affecting the hind quarters only. 



The duration of complicated cases of distemper is problematical. In 

 many instances convalescence is for a long time delayed, and recovery 

 takes place slowly and is only completed after many weeks. When we 

 consider that the important organs in all parts of the body are weakened 

 and otherwise injured by the distemper process, that important constitu- 

 ents have been destroyed, that nutrition is retarded by defective digestion, 

 it becomes intelligible to us that complete restoration is slow after the 

 severer attacks of the disease. 



Treatment. — Distemper is a disease which tends intrinsically to end 

 after a certain time, and is therefore self limited. A fatal result is rarely 

 due to the intensity of the disease; death is generally attributable to com- 

 plications. These facts are of considerable importance in estimating the 

 amount of curative influence exerted by methods of treatment. No relia- 

 ble means are yet known which can be depended upon to arrest this disease, 

 or even shorten the duration of the febrile career. Active measures em- 

 ployed simply because the distemper exists, without reference to events 

 connected with it, are contra-indicated. The progress should be carefully 

 watched and appropriate treatmentbe employed as unfavorable symptoms 

 arise; attempts should not be made to abridge or arrest the disease, but 

 rather is nature to be assisted, and remedies be employed to aid in con- 

 ducting it to a favorable termination. 



The management of distemper involves not only the exercise of judg- 

 ment in the employment of medicinal remedies, but of attention to 

 sanitary and sustaining or supporting measures; a most important object 

 being to obviate the tendency to death by exhaustion, and to forestall a 

 degree of prostration dangerous to life. 



When the disease makes its appearance the affected animal should be 

 Isolated from others and placed in dry, well ventilated quarters. The im- 

 portance of an abundance of pure air cannot be exaggerated; in cold 

 weather moderate artificial heat will be needed. The presence of disin- 

 fectants about the room is advised, and the preparations of lime and 

 carbolic acid in powder are to be preferred. 



It is an urgent necessity that as complete bodily rest as possible be 

 secured from the very beginning of an attack ; restraint must therefore be 

 enforced until the period of danger has passed. To unload the bowels 

 at the onset is important, and the syrup of buckthorn and castor oil, of 

 each two or three teaspoonfuls, may be given. 



Appreciating the disturbing influence of a high fever it is our first duty 



