AILMENTS AND ILLNESSES 45 



three grains of saccharated carbonate of iron twice a 

 day, with meat diet, will make a most marvellously 

 different dog of him in six weeks' or two months' time. 



It is quite useless to give any tonic for a week or ten 

 days, or irregularly. It must be given for a long time 

 and with perfect regularity, or it does no good what- 

 ever : it must have time to be absorbed into the system, 

 to permeate it, and be taken up by the blood. 



Bad Teeth. The existence of canker in dogs' teeth 

 is generally another consequence of bad rearing and 

 farinaceous feeding. Meat - fed pups, from meat - fed. 

 parents, have conspicuously good sound teeth, whereas 

 among kennelled dogs it is not at all uncommon to find 

 specimens of mouths cankered throughout, and this 

 condition is certainly sometimes transmitted to the 

 offspring. The teeth look deep yellow, or brown, the 

 dental enamel is soft, and in bad cases they drop out. 

 The gums are soft and spongy and pale. The disease 

 being constitutional, little or nothing can be done to 

 arrest the decay of the teeth, which luckily seems pain- 

 less. The dog should be carefully fed on the most 

 nutritious underdone meat, and the mouth may be 

 washed out daily with a very weak solution of per- 

 manganate of potash : just enough of the crystals to 

 tinge warm water pink being used. The best way to 

 perform this little operation one to which most dogs 

 object very strongly is to get someone to hold the 

 head, with the nose pointing downwards, over a basin, 

 and to introduce the nozzle of a gutta-percha ball 

 syringe between the lips at the back of one side, letting 

 it enter that spot in the jaw where there is a hiatus 

 between the lower teeth. Two or three squeezes of the 

 ball will then wash out the mouth pretty effectually. 



This cankered condition of dogs' teeth may be brought 

 about by the absorption of mercury into the system. 

 A dcg which had been troubled with very obstinate 

 recurrent eczema, known to be inherited from ill-reared 

 parents, was apparently cured as by magic when sent 



