262 DISEASES OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 



As a rule, a few minutes aftei- the hypodermatic is administered the animal 

 becomes quiet and rests easily. Inhalations of chloroform, chloral hydrate, 

 bromide of potassium, etc., are also recommended. Warm baths and 

 friction produce relaxation of the tense muscles; the ''cold pack" is also 

 particularly useful; take a bed sheet or some such large piece of muslin, 

 saturate it with cold water, wring it out thoroughly and wrap the animal 

 up in it, enclosing the whole body, of course, letting the head free, allow 

 the animal to lie in this for two or three hours. Valerianate of zinc in 05. 

 gm. dose evei'y two hours. Urethane 5 to 20.0. Hypnon 0.25. 



Divers Diseases of the Nerves. 



Diseases of the nerves in which there is no anatomical change. 



Catalepsy. — Catalepsy, or "cataleptic rigidity," is a rare disease in 

 which there is a peculiar rigidity of the muscles, and the animals may l)e 

 placed in certain positions and remain perfectly rigid. Consciousness and 

 sensitiveness seem to be suppressed entirely. Such an attack lasts for hours 

 and recurs daily, this condition lasting for weeks. The rigidity may start in 

 the muscles that are in action at the time the animal is seized with the 

 attack, and rapidly extend to all the muscles of the body, until the animal 

 remains fixed like a statue, and may finally die of starvation, being unable 

 to eat or drink. In many cases they finally relapse and die in a short 

 time, or they have been known to die in six or seven days, or the condition 

 was followed by general muscular weakness, in which the muscular walls of 

 the bladder and intestinal tract were also involved. There is invariably 

 subnormal temperature and coma. If this is really a disease, or merely a 

 symptom of some br-ain complication, the writer has not been able to 

 positively determine. 



Hertwig mentions as causes of catalepsy, cold, fright, overloading the 

 stomach with indigestible food, and metastases in various diseases. 

 Frohner considers this disease as a purely functional neurosis of the brain 

 and spine; he could not find any definite alterations in the central organs, 

 in catalepsy, but he found occasionally certain secondary alterations in 

 the muscles; namely, hemorrhages, dark venous swellings, and fatty 

 degeneration of the muscles, also degeneration of the fibres of the heart. 



No practical thcrapevitic treatment is known. Sedatives such as bro- 

 mide of potassium and morphine, electricity and cold douches, are used as 

 a means of restoring the disturbed reflex irritability of the nervous system. 



Psychosis. — It is a question whether psychological disturbances can 

 occur in the dog which has not intellectual elements of the cerebrum 

 possessed by man, but it is reasonably certain this question can be an- 

 swered in the negative. It is evidently some disturbance in the sphere of 

 the will. In one case of a dog ten years old, the muscles affected were the 

 limbs and those of mastication. If the animal had a portion of food in his 



