THE KENNEL. 127 



return to the kennel, is that distemper, the curse of all 

 kennels, is likely soon to attack them. It is far better that they 

 should have it now than some months hence. In all probability 

 if they escape for the time being, the disease will take them 

 in the following February when they are in good work, and then 

 they have it, as a rule, much more severely. If they do not die 

 the master loses their work for the rest of the season, and they 

 are thrown back, so that it is more convenient to get it over. 

 The severity and even the nature of distemper varies so much 

 from year to year, that it is impossible to suggest any specific 

 cure. One year it attacks the lungs, and is then very fatal, 

 particularly if the yellows (jaundice) is a symptom. Another 

 year it goes to the head, when blindness, violent bleedings 

 at the nose, discharge of matter, and other troubles ensue. 

 Often the hound looks as if he were dead, being utterly 

 unable to stand. Distemper occasionally affects the limbs 

 with fearful twitchings, from which in some cases the hounds 

 never recover, that is to say, these symptoms never wholly dis- 

 appear. Hounds thus affected have seemed so well in other 

 respects that a few years ago in the Badminton kennels it was 

 determined to see whether they would stand a day's work, and 

 it was found that some of those which never lost this result of 

 the disease could run up with the best and stand the longest and 

 hardest days. Distemper appears to be especially fatal to the 

 finest, strongest, and best young hounds. Sucking puppies if 

 attacked are hardly ever known to survive. The master is 

 powerless to avert the disease. Many people vaccinate their 

 hounds as a preventative, but though few sane men doubt the 

 efficacy of vaccination as a safeguard against small-pox, it can 

 have no effect against distemper in a hound, a disease of a 

 totally different character. Mr. F. Gillard, huntsman to the 

 Duke of Rutland at Belvoir, has compounded a medicine which 

 is perhaps as good as any that can be used, but it will be found 

 much more efficacious in some seasons than in others on account 

 of the various methods in which hounds are affected in different 

 years. Much also depends on the weather, a long spell of 



