DISTEMPER MISTAKEN FOR MADNESS 125 



hydrophobia, but they are rabid from some other cause. In 

 different phases of distemper that disease will make a dog rabid, 

 and induce him to snap at and bite everything that is in motion 

 near him, from a stick in a man's hand to any living animal. 

 The eyes of dogs so suffering resemble those of a dog under 

 hydrophobia, and they are subject to similar paroxysms, to 

 dulness and stupor, and when not thirsty, if water, or indeed if 

 anything was thrown at them, they would be violent and bite, 

 but not from any repugnance to the element. Dogs in this state, 

 a state of fever and internal inflammation, will lap water 

 ravenously, and for a quarter of an hour at a time, with very 

 little power of swallowing, and in doing so will cover the water 

 with frothy saliva. I have seen the dish from which they were 

 lapping filled with froth and foam, and observed but very little 

 diminution in the fluid. I have also known them to swallow 

 water to a great extent. In giving one of these dogs, a grey- 

 hound, some physic, my man John Dewey, now head keeper at 

 Pilewell, had a cut on his thumb, which he contrived to get well 

 filled by the saliva from the dog's mouth, and the fact gave him 

 for a time considerable mental uneasiness. I bade him wash it 

 well, and told him I would insure him from any serious conse- 

 quences, for the distemper in a dog never yet made anybody 

 mad but their master. Those dogs so affected, generally speaking, 

 recovered, and a dog I saw them bite was never any the worse 

 for it. On dissection, those that died proved to be in a violent 

 inflammatory state, extending from the windpipe to the lungs, 

 intestines, and liver; the brain and the heart being alone 

 untouched by the disease. There is no specific cure for the 

 distemper, and no rule can be laid down for its treatment, 

 because the symptoms are so various and uncertain that the 

 remedy which might cure in one instance would kill in another ; 

 the lancet, seton, blister, and active dose being called for in one 

 periodical attack, and quinine, sago, arrowroot, and every sort 

 of dainty that can provoke appetite or sustain strength, in the 

 other. Sometimes the distemper comes out in an eruption of the 

 skin, and that is the safest turn it can take. The treatment 



