102 SPECIFIC CATARRHAL DISEASE, OR DISTEMPER. 



cretion, it may be supposed that purposed inoculation with the pus 

 or matter of distemper readily introduces it into the system, and 

 such is the fact. Nevertheless, at times the constitution is not 

 open to receive the contagion ; and not only will inoculation fail to 

 produce it, but also constant communication, and every other means 

 whereby it might be supposed communicable, proves equally so. At 

 some future time, however, the disease will be readily produced in 

 the same dog by apparently less active agencies. The occasional 

 causes are numerous : whatever tends to produce debility in the 

 system is a grand one ; thus distemper frequently follows other 

 diseases, as pneumonic attacks : the confinement and treatment 

 >vhich bad mange requires are observed to produce it also ; and the 

 tabid and rickety very rarely escape it in its severest form^^. Cold 

 accidentally applied, as washing without drying afterwards, or 

 throwing a puppy or young dog into the water, has often brought 

 it on ; forcing such an one to sleep exposed, does the same. 

 Sudden haemorrhages, and an immediate change from a full to a 

 low diet, or an unusual day's fatigue, are each of them causes that 

 I have seen produce distemper^^. 



•^ Mr. Youatt observes the same also. " When (he says) I see a puppy 

 with mange, and that peculiar disease in which the skin becomes corrugated, 

 and more especially if it be a spaniel, and pot-bellied or ricketty, I generally 

 say I can cure the mange, but that the dog will soon after die of distemper ; 

 and it so happens in three cases out of four." — Veterinarian, vol. iii, p. 76. 



'■^ The French entertain an opinion that feeding dogs on animal food is 

 productive of distemper. At the Parisian Veterinary School the whelps of a 

 bitch were divided; one half were fed on raw meat, and the other half on soup 

 and vegetables. Of the first division each contracted the distemper ; of the 

 latter, one only became affected, and that slightly, which circumstance was 

 thought confirmatory of the opinion ; but it is not difficult to prove that this 

 conclusion is neither consistent with reason nor fact. We know dogs to be 

 naturally carnivorous ; and it is not reasonable to suppose that feeding them 

 after the method which nature pointed out would render them more obnoxious 

 to disease. It is likewise in direct contradiction to our experience, because 

 nothing so tends to keep off' distemper as flesh feeding and high condition. 

 I have invariably observed that the fattest puppies bore up longest against the 

 disease, and weathered it best when it did arrive. 



