DOGS I THEIR MANAGEMENT. 289 



not to be tli ought of; but an operation of a less heroic 

 description will sometimes accomplish what the previous 

 measures failed to effect. With a knife, having not too 

 sharp but a coarse edge, a circular portion of the exposed 

 lining membrane, of a width proportioned to the size of 

 the animal, may be scraped off, so as to induce a cicatrix ; 

 or, if the dog be very tractable, and the operator skilful, 

 a piece of it may partially be dissected off; but the 

 knife, when employed in the last method, is apt to cause 

 alarming hemorrhage. When this is done, as the wound 

 heals the edges come together, and the gut is so far 

 shortened as to be thereby retracted. There is, how- 

 ever, some danger of stricture being afterwards esta- 

 blished ; wherefore this operation, nowever satisfactory it 

 may seem to be in the first instance, is not so certain in 

 the benefit of its results that it should be resorted to, 

 save in extreme cases when every other means have 

 failed, and the choice at last hangs between relief and 

 destruction. 



Another affection of the part, to which Scotch terriers 

 of great size are particularly subject, begins with an en- 

 largement below the anus, extending either quite or 

 almost to the testicles ; for males are more frequently 

 attacked by this form of disease than females. The dog 

 is generally old, and a favorite with an indulgent mis- 

 tress, having much to eat, and little or no work to do. 

 The swelling is soft and attended with no pain. On 

 pressure and on percussion it is ascertained to hold fluid, 

 and in fact it arises from dropsy of the permseum. The 



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