BREEDING IN BITCHES. 89 



Tersal or partial. The partial collections frequently shew 

 themselves by a swelling- on each side of the loins, produced 

 by a deposit of adipose substance around each ovaria. In 

 other cases, particularly where barrenness is occasional, the 

 mammae, or milk glands, become affected with small indura- 

 tions, which eventually end in confirmed scirrhi or open ulcers. 

 —See SciRRHUS. A more immediate evil likewise often 

 awaits the preventing- of dogs from breeding, which is, a 

 troublesome accumulation of milk in the mammae, or teats ; 

 for the various organs of generation have such a sympathetic 

 connection with each other, that when females are denied 

 the dog, still, when the customary period of gestation or going 

 with young has passed, milk will nevertheless appear in the 

 lactiferous glands. This sometimes occurs to a very consi- 

 derable deffree, and occasions much heat and distention. 

 It is more particularly observed in such females as have 

 already had young ones, and they invariably suffer most in 

 the future privation. In such cases, it is proper gently to 

 press out the milk daily, which will greatly relieve the ani- 

 mal ; the teats should also be frequently bathed with a mixture 

 of brandy and vinegar a little weakened with water. Food 

 should be given sparingly, and an occasional dose of physic 

 will prove useful*. 



* The author of the Treatise on Greyhounds (whose opinion, as an ob- 

 servant sportsman and breeder, ought to have due weight), remarks, that 

 where breeding has been always prevented, he has never found any injurious 

 effects whatever to follow from it. It is undoubtedly true, and it accords 

 with my own experience, that the constitution having once been subjected 

 to the reproductive process, or, in other words, that bitches once allowed to 

 breed ar'^ more liable to suffer from the future deprivation of it than those in 

 whom the constitutional sympathies have never been fully excited through- 

 out the generative system. It may also be remarked, in answer to the above 

 statement, that sporting and other dogs accustomed to moderate feeding and 

 regular exercise (which are evidently those Sir W. C. draws his inferences 

 from), will bear this deprivation with much greater impunity than those that 

 are more confined and altogether more artificially treated. But as a law in 

 the animal economy, and as one applicable to the general state and constitu- 

 tion of the dog, the reproduction of the species is a necessary, a natural, 



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