2I2 VETERINARY LECTURES 



ing, while the teeth are dirty. The appetite, however, is fair, yet the 

 dog loses flesh, and the belly becomes enlarged and hard, while there 

 is nearly always present a peculiar barking, long, husky cough. 

 Treatment. — First all fancy foods should be stopped and a plain 

 diet given, such as dog-biscuit steeped in soup, feeding twice in 

 twenty-four hours, and giving gentle walking exercise. For medicine, 

 mix i drachm each of blue pill, powdered aloes, and powdered 

 rhubarb, and make into twelve pills, and give one every third or 

 fourth day. This dose is for an ordinary-sized collie dog ; other 

 doses should be regulated according to age, breed, and size of dog. 



321. Pancreas. — I have never as yet met with any disease of 

 this organ, either in post-mortems or otherwise, except in tubercular 

 disease. 



322. The Spleen, Milt, or Cat-Collop (Plate XVIII., E), is 



situated on the left side of the larger curvature of the stomach. It 

 has a bluish-grey, mottled appearance (in the pig slightly red), shaped 

 like a sole, and is very soft and elastic. It is ductless, having no 

 channel for the removal of its products, except by means of the 

 bloodvessels. Its proper functions are not exactly known, though 

 several are ascribed to it. Still, it can be done without, as cases are 

 on record where the spleen has been successfully removed from dog 

 and man without causing death, or, indeed, much inconvenience, so 

 long as the diet was properly attended to. My opinion is that it acts 

 as a reservoir for the old worn-out red corpuscles which have done 

 their duty in the blood. These, rushing to the spleen during diges- 

 tion, are broken down, disintegrated, and carried by the splenic vein 

 into the portal vein, thence to the liver, and help to form bile (see 

 Lecture VIII., 'Circulation'). The spleen is supplied with blood 

 by the splenic artery— a branch of the cceliac axis, which is a large 

 artery that arises from the posterior or abdominal aorta, just after it 

 passes through the diaphragm. This artery divides into three 

 branches: (1) The gastric artery, supplying the stomach; (2) the 

 hepatic artery, supplying the liver ; and (3) the splenic artery, which 

 supplies the spleen with nutrient blood. Although the spleen can 

 be done without, it is a very dangerous organ when diseased. Some- 



