SPECIFIC CATAHRHAL DISEASE, OR DISTEMPER. 113 



some breeds of the same variety possess a particular aptitude to 

 fall under its attacks. The appearance of one fit very early in 

 the complaint is not alarming ; but if it be more advanced, it is 

 truly so ; and when followed up by a second and a third, the case is 

 nearly hopeless. When the eyes soon after the appearance of the 

 disease betray a great impatience of light, and look red within, the 

 dog will have it severely, and the extreme quantity of nasal dis- 

 charge which follows will be apt to wear him down ; if it becomes 

 bloody, it will be still more likely to do so. When the catarrh 

 degenerates into pneumonia, if it is at all intense, it is not often 

 successfully combated. The diarrhoea commonly attendant on the 

 complaint is very apt to prove so obstinate as to reduce the animal 

 strength beyond the powers of the constitution to restore, even 

 without the weight of the specific disease attached to it: when 

 therefore the diarrhoea continues to resist medical aid, and is attended 

 with tenesmus and bloody purulent stools, it will generally prove 

 fatal. The breaking out of a pustular eruption, and a yellow tinge 

 pervading the surface of the body, are usually precursors of death. 

 The spasmodic twitchings which sometimes accompany the com- 

 plaint, if constant and violent, expend the vital energies fast, and 

 usually end fatally : this event may be almost certainly predicted, 

 if the animal loses flesh fast under them ; but let them be as violent 

 as they may, and indeed whatever other unfavourable appearances 

 may occur, if the dog continues to gain flesh, the chances are that 

 he will recover. 



T%e treatment of distemper must necessarily vary considerably, 

 according to the nature of the attack made, as well as the age, con- 

 stitution, &c. of the object of it. It is somewhat singular, that 

 while the very best practitioners so often fail in their treatment of 

 the complaint, we seldom meet with a sportsman or breeder of 

 dogs, but who (according to his own account) can readily cure 

 it, " being in possession of what he fondly flatters himself to be an 

 infallible remedy for it." I once thought a remedy of my own 

 discovery almost so : but a lengthened experience shewed it was 

 far from infallible, and I suspect that most of these infallibles are 



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