4 GENERAL EXAMINATION 



kirmia, diabetes, carcinoma, and in chronic nephritis. A slight loss of 

 flesh is also seen following surgical operations. As an opposite to ema- 

 ciation, we may see a rapid accumulation of adipose tissue; this may 

 occur from laziness, a disinclination to take exercise or resist it when 

 forced to do so, or to close confinement where the animal is the pet of a 

 sick person. Disturbances of the respiratory and circulatory apparatus 

 have a tendency to produce accumulations of fat in the abdominal and 

 thoracic walls, in the pericardium, and in the heart. 



THE MUCOUS MEMBRANES OF THE HEAD. 



In making a general examination, the first thing to do is to examine 

 the visible mucous membranes, to see the color of them, the conjunctiva, 

 and also of the mouth and throat. It is best to examine more than one 

 mucous membrane, as the examination of one only may lead to an error 

 in diagnosis. Rapid exercise, particularly in hot weather or in high wind, 

 may produce a temporary congestion of the mucous membranes. Red- 

 dening of the eyes is often a perfectly normal condition in some breeds of 

 dogs. Abnormal paleness of the mucous membranes may be due to 

 decrease in the amount of blood in the system from severe internal or 

 external hemorrhage, or from slight but frequent hemorrhage internally. 

 It may be due to decrease in the amount of haemoglobin in the blood 

 corpuscles, in diseases peculiar to the blood, as in ansemia, leukaemia, 

 pseudo-leukeemia, and in all diseases producing great loss of fluids, such 

 as disease of the kidneys, disease of the stomach and the bowels, in tuber- 

 culosis, carcinoma and also in slow pus formations that are accompanied 

 with or without fever, in defective heart action, as in collapse, where the 

 heart's action is, to a certain extent, paralyzed for the time, as in many 

 acute diseases or violent poisons, or from depressing drugs; also in dis- 

 eases of the heart and its covering, the pericardium. A blue or cyanotic 

 coloring is sometimes seen where there is defective oxygenation of the 

 blood and it is loaded with carbon dioxide. This is also seen where the 

 blood in the lungs does not come in contact with oxygen, as in contract- 

 ion of the trachea or larynx, or by the inflammation or swelling of these 

 parts, foreign bodies, internal or external tumors, pressing on the air- 

 passages; also in acute bronchitis, in the various forms of pneumonia, in 

 large pleuritic exudates, in hydrothorax, in severe ascites where the dia- 

 phragm is pressed on, in rigidity of the muscles, as in eclampsia in bitches, 

 in strychnine poisoning, and in some heart affections; in cases of defective 

 blood circulations in the capillaries, from disease of the heart, especially 

 if there is fatty degeneration; from defective valvular action, from depos- 

 its on them; from pericardiac exudates; from the action of poison acting 

 directly on the heart; or from some injury or pressure on the jugular; in 



