212 JAUNDICE. 



the back ; an insatiable thirst, accompanied by the refusal of all food ; loss 

 of flesh, which occasionally proceeds with astonishing rapidity ; a tucked-up 

 flank, with hardness and tenderness of the anterior part of the belly. 



The jaundice which is not accompanied with fever, nor indeed with any 

 morbid change but the colour of the skin, will require very little treat- 

 ment. It will usually disappear in a reasonable time, and M. Leblanc has 

 not found that any kind of treatment would hasten that disappearance. 



When any new symptom becomes superadded to jaundice, it must be 

 immediately combated. Fever, injection of the vessels of the conjunctiva, 

 constipation, diarrhoea, or the discoloration of the urine, require one 

 bleeding at least, with some mucilaginous drinks. Purgatives are always 

 injurious at the commencement of the disease. " I consider," says M. 

 Leblanc, " this fact to be of the utmost importance. Almost the whole of 

 the dogs that have been brought to me seriously ill with jaundice, have 

 been purged once or more ; and either kitchen salt, or tobacco, or jalap, 

 or syrup of buckthorn, or emetic tartar, or some unknown purgative pow- 

 ders, have been administered. 



" Bleeding should be resorted to, and repeated if the fever continues, or 

 the animal coughs, or the respiration be accelerated. When the pulse is 

 subdued, and the number of pulsations are below the natural standard if 

 the excrements are still void of their natural colour if the constipation 

 continues, or the animal refuses to feed an ounce of manna dissolved in 

 warm water should be given, and the dog often drenched with linseed tea. 

 If watery diarrhoea should supervene, and the belly is not hot nor tender, a 

 drachm or more, according to the size of the dog, of the sulphate of mag- 

 nesia or soda should be administered, and this medicine should be repeated 

 if the purging continues; more especially should this aperient be had 

 recourse to when the faeces are more or less bloody, there being no fever nor 

 peculiar tenderness of the belly. 



" When the liquid excrement contains much blood, and that blood is of a 

 deep colour, all medicines given by the mouth should be suspended, and 

 frequent injections should be thrown up, consisting of thin starch, with a 

 few drops of laudanum. Too much cold water should not be allowed in 

 this stage of the disease. Injections, and drinks composed of starch and 

 opium, are the means most likely to succeed in the black diarrhoea, which 

 is so frequent and so fatal, and which almost always precedes the fatal 

 termination of all the diseases connected with jaundice. 



" In simple cases of jaundice the neutral salts have seldom produced much 

 good effect ; but I have obtained considerable success from the diascordium, 

 in doses of half a drachm to a drachm. 



" Great care should be taken with regard to the diet of the dog that has 

 had jaundice, with bloody or black diarrhoea ; for the cases of relapse are 

 frequent and serious, and almost always caused by improper or too abun- 

 dant food. A panada of bread, with a little butter, will constitute the best 

 nourishment when the dog begins to recover his appetite. From this he 

 maybe gradually permitted to return to his former food. Most especially 

 should the animal not be suffered to take cold, or to be left in a low or 

 damp situation. This attention to the food of the convalescent dog may be 

 thought to be pushed a little too far ; but experience has taught me to 

 consider it of the utmost importance, and it is neither expensive nor 

 troublesome." 



