THE DISTEMPER. 137 



frequently fails to produce it, and the disposition to receive 

 the contag-ion is, likewise, not always in equal force, but it 

 appears strong-er or weaker at various periods in the same 

 animal, and is perhaps under the controul of the accidental 

 changes in health, fulness of habit, &c. &c. Cold applied in 

 any noxious manner to the system is a very common origin 

 of the complaint; throwing into water, washing, and not 

 afterwards drying the animal; unusual exposure during a 

 night, &c., are frequent causes of distemper in young and 

 tender dogs. I have seen it produced by violent heemorrhage, 

 by a sudden change from a full to a low diet*, and, in fact, 

 any great or sudden derangement in the system is sufficient 

 to call the predisposition into action. 



The usual period of its attack is that of puberty, or when 

 the dog attains his full growth : in some it is protracted to 

 two, three, or even many years old ; and a very few escape 

 it altogether. The having once passed through the disease 

 is not a certain preventive to a future attack. It occasionally 

 appears a second time ; and an instance fell under my notice 

 of a third recurrence, with the intervention of two years be- 

 tween each attack. 



Dogs in confined situations certainly have the disease with 



effluvia, I have reason to believe, is alone sufficient to occasion the dis- 

 temper in another dog : that the miasma arising from the morbid secre- 

 tions of the e}'^es and nose will do it, I have numerous proofs ^ but I 

 doubt whether the morbid matter itself, received into the stomach, in- 

 dependent of the other contagious agents, will generate the complaint : 

 some experiments tend to prove that in this mode the matter is inno- 

 cuous. In general cases, both the effluvia and the contact of the morbid 

 matter received on a mucous surface, as the nose, lips, &c. are so highly 

 contagious, that a very short exposure to the one, and a momentary ap- 

 plication of the other, are sufficient for the production. 



* I have constantly found that full feeding, so as to produce fatness 

 is the best preventive against a premature attack of the distemper, 

 which is to be dreaded from the constitution not havinggained strength 

 sufficient to enable it to withstand the debilitating effects of the disease. 

 In puppies that are fat and full fed, not only is the complaint protract- 

 ed, but, when it does make its attack, such dogs alwaj'S fare best 

 under it. 



K 



