136 DOGS: THEIR MANAGEMENT. 



is then unnatural, and is so intense that no quantity can 

 appease the hunger. The animal will eat anything ; dry 

 bread is taken with avidity, and stones, cinders, straw, 

 and every species of filth are eaten with apparent relish. 

 Such, however, is not always the case, since it is not 

 unusual for the appetite entirely to fail. In either in- 

 stance the dog rapidly wastes ; the flesh seems to melt 

 as it were away, and the change produced by a few days 

 is startling ; from having been fat, a thinness which ex- 

 poses every bone is witnessed in a shorter time than 

 would be supposed possible. At this period vomiting 

 may come on ; but when the animal is morbidly rave- 

 nous, the stomach does not generally reject its contents. 

 After death I have found it loaded with the most irritat- 

 ing substances, and always acutely inflamed ; but no 

 sickness in any instance of this kind has been observed. 

 Vomiting is most generally absent, but the protruded and 

 reddened appearance of the anus will give a clue to the 

 actual condition of the alimentary tube. - The stomach is 

 inflamed, not throughout, but in various parts which are 

 in different stages of disease. The pyloric orifice is 

 always more affected than the cardiac ; the duodenum, 

 jejunum, and ileum, are inflamed ; the caecum is enlarged, 

 inflamed, and generally impacted. The rectum, however, 

 suffers most severely ; it is much reddened and thick- 

 ened, often to an extraordinary degree. I have known 

 blood to be exuded from the surface of this bowel in 

 such quantities as to destroy the life from actual hemor- 

 rhage. In one case, however, a spaniel vomited more 



