114 SPECIFIC CATARRHAL DISEASE, OR DISTEMPER. 



no better : it happens however with these discoverers, that, under 

 the exhibition of some medicine (having met with two or three 

 successful cases which would perhaps have done well without any 

 medicament), this has been afterw^ards considered as the grand 

 specific. But continued experience leads us to a conclusion, that 

 although many different remedies are useful, according as one or 

 other form of the disease prevails ; yet that there is not, and I be- 

 lieve cannot be, a specific for this protean disorder. As most 

 cases of distemper commence by cough or slight defluxion from 

 the nose and eyes, with a failing in the ordinary appetite and 

 spirits, and a gradual losing of flesh, an emetic is the first remedy; 

 it clears the stomach and bowels, and sympathetically lessens the 

 inflammatory action going on. Should the pulse or the state of 

 breathing, or the violence of the cough, indicate any determina- 

 tion to the lungs, bleed by all means, to the amount of from three 

 ounces to five or six, according to size, age, &c., particularly if 

 the dog be in good case and moderately strong. The bowels 

 should also be opened by a laxative ; but if it is not found ne- 

 cessary to bleed, then substitute a mild purge for the laxative ; 

 unless the dog is either very young, the breed very tender, or there 

 is much emaciation : in that case merely open the bowels by the 

 laxative. 



As an emetic, either tartarised antimony (emetic tartar) or 

 calomel may be used ; sometimes one and sometimes the other are 

 to be preferred : when there is any disposition to purging already 

 observed, give the tartar emetic only, in the form and quantity 

 directed under Emetics (p. 85). In other cases, let the puke bo 

 made of equal parts of calomel and tartarised antimony, from half 

 a grain to a grain and a half of each ; or even two grains of each 

 will not be too much for a full grown dog of the largest breeds. 

 Mr. Youatt, with much judgment, prefers this form of vomit, on 

 the grounds that it proves a laxative as well as a puke ; and, as 

 before observed, if there is not already any tendency to looseness, 

 it is the preferable one. The articles used on these occasions by 

 sportsmen, as Turpith mineral and crude antimony, are highly ob- 



