ON DISTEMPEK AND MADNESS AMONG HOUNDS. 110 



disease may affect a lioimcl of any age, Liit usually 

 in a milder form. I have studied this ruinous 

 contagion all my life, and tried various remedies, 

 listened to the nonsense put forth by others in 

 regard to certain cures, such as ^^red herrings," 

 and other strangely conceived and certainly in- 

 noxious, though useless, remedies; but there is no 

 certain cure for the distemper: it must visit your 

 kennel with the young hounds; it irill have its 

 way, in a more or less mild form, when so varied 

 are its modes of attack, and so different are the 

 effects that attend on it, that I have found it im- 

 possible till the disease appears to lay down any 

 specific rule for its immediate treatment. All that 

 I found it possible and best to do was carefully 

 to study its varied mode of attack ; and when the 

 ailments of the constitution tended to show where 

 and in what manner nature needed assistance, 

 then to step in with such, appliances as the case 

 seemed to demand. The attack, like the coffin of 

 Mahomet was sujoposed to do ])etween Heaven and 

 earth, is very apt to suspend itself between im- 

 mense inflammatory action and the lower grades 

 of constitutional debility. A change, too, from 

 one of these phases to the other is oftentimes so 



