VARIOUS KINDS OF " MANGE" 625 



Just let us see for a moment what Youatt a man deservedly honoured as an authority 

 upon many other ailments of the horse and dog, though notably the horse says about 

 mange. He begins by confessing that mange is caused by various tribes of animalculae bur- 

 rowing under the skin, and he seems to favour the idea that these animalculae, if placed on the 

 skin of a healthy individual, will produce a form of scabies. Of this we shall speak presently. 

 Then he says a mangy bitch will be liable to produce mangy puppies. If he had said an 

 ekzematous bitch may produce ekzematous puppies he would not have been wrong ; but as 

 true mange depends upon a skin parasite, the puppies cannot catch the disease until after they are 

 born. Presently he says, "Close confinement and salted food are frequent causes of mange." 

 Again, this is not the true mange but ekzema, vulgarly called red mange. " The scabby mange," 

 he goes on to say and now he has clearly got on to ekzema, and the parasites have crawled 

 away somewhere out of sight entirely " the scabby mange is a frequent form which this disease 

 assumes. It assumes a pustular and scabby form in the red mange, particularly in white-haired 

 dogs, when there is much and painful inflammation." Again he says, " A peculiar eruption, 

 termed surfeit, which resembles mange, is sometimes the consequence of exposure to cold after 

 a hot, sultry day." Mr. Youatt is right here, reader ; this form of ekzema will come on suddenly 

 either in a child or delicate young dog, from any sudden lowering of vitality. Then he describes 

 the symptoms of acute " mange " (ekzema) very well, and, with the exception of " bleeding " 

 (just fancy bleeding a dog in ekzema) his internal and local treatment is rational till he comes 

 to the tobacco dip. Tobacco is lowering and easily absorbed by a broken skin ; but, to his 

 credit be it told, he advises both this and mercurial preparations to be used but sparingly. 

 And two other remarks he makes are well worthy of transcription viz., the sentences, "A 

 change in the mode of feeding will often be useful," and " The diarrhoea produced by mercury 

 often has a fatal effect." 



Mr. Youatt says, " Mr. Elaine had a favourite Setter who had virulent mange for five years." 

 And no wonder, if dressings and dips were alone used, and the disease was all the time chronic 

 ekzema. 



Again, still on the subject of mange, and referring to the year 1843, Mr. Youatt speaks 

 of it assuming a form or type having for its prominent symptoms "the sudden appearance of 

 redness of the skin, and exudation from it, and actual sores attending the falling off of the 

 hair, and an itching that seemed to be intolerable" ekzema, of course, and not parasitical 

 mange. 



Now, if we bear in mind that the older writers on veterinary medicine were not by any 

 means too well informed with regard to nerve pathology, we cannot wonder for a moment 

 that these cases of intense itching which came before them should be put down to the action 

 of parasites, especially when sometimes there was but little inflammation, or anything else seen 

 on the skin to account for it ; whereas the itching might have depended upon some form of 

 ekzema, or it might have been altogether of a reflex character, depending on some distant 

 source of irritation, probably worms in the bowels. No wonder, then, that in Mr. Youatt's 

 cases, where there was that "intolerable itching, with very little to show for it," that "all 

 unguents were thrown away upon them," and that " lotions of corrosive sublimate, decoction of 

 bark, infusions of digitalis or tobacco effected but little good," and that "purgatives and iodide 

 of potassium " did "generally succeed." 



Mr. Mayhew, on the other hand, in his description of the various kinds of mange, is much 

 nearer the mark, and his treatment is at least rational ; still, even his classification could afford 

 to be considerably more specific. 

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