232 DISTEMPER. 



Inoculation with the matter that flows from the nose, either limpid or 

 purulent, and in an early or advanced stage of the distemper, will, with 

 few exceptions, produce the disease ; yet I have failed to communicate it 

 even by this method. Inoculation used to be recommended as producing a 

 milder and less fatal disease. So far as my experience goes, the contrary 

 has been the result. 



Distemper is also epidemic. It occurs more frequently in the spring 

 and autumn than in the winter and summer. If one or two dogs in a cer- 

 tain district are affected, we may be assured that it will soon extensively 

 prevail there ; and where the disease could not possibly be communicated 

 by contagion. Sometimes it rages all over the country. At other times 

 it is endemic, and confined to some particular district. 



Not only is the disease epidemic or endemic, but the form which it 

 assumes is so. In one season, almost every dog with distemper has violent 

 fits ; at another, in the majority of cases, there will be considerable chest 

 affection, running on to pneumonia ; a few months afterwards, a great 

 proportion of the distempered dogs will be worn down by diarrhoea, which 

 no medicine will arrest ; and presently it will be scarcely distinguishable 

 from mild catarrh. 



It varies much with different breeds. The shepherd's dog, generally 

 speaking, cares little about it ; he is scarcely ill a day. The cur is not 

 often seriously affected. The terrier has it more severely, especially the 

 white terrier. The hound comes next in the order of severity ; and after 

 him the setter. With the small spaniel it is more dangerous ; and still 

 more so with the pointer, especially if he has the disease early. Next in 

 the order of fatality comes the pug ; and it is most fatal of all with the 

 Newfoundland dog. Should a foreign dog be affected, he almost certainly 

 dies. The greater part of the northern dogs brought by Captain Parry 

 did not survive a twelvemonth ; and the delicate Italian greyhound has 

 little chance, when imported from abroad. 



Not only does it thus differ in different species of dogs, but in different 

 breeds of the same species. I have known several gentlemen who have 

 laboured in vain for many years, to rear particular and valuable breeds 

 of pointers and greyhounds. The distemper would uniformly carry off 

 five out of six. Other sportsmen laugh at the supposed danger of dis- 

 temper, and declare that they seldom lose a dog. This hereditary pre- 

 disposition to certain kinds of disease cannot be denied, and is not 

 sufficiently attended to. When a peculiar fatality has often followed a 

 certain breed, the owner should cross it from another kennel, and especially 

 from the kennel of one who boasts of his success in the treatment of dis- 

 temper. This has occasionally succeeded far beyond expectation. 



It is time to proceed to the symptoms of this disease ; but here there is 

 very considerable difficulty, for it is a truly protean malady, and it is im- 

 possible to fix on any symptom that will invariably characterise it. 



An early and frequent symptom is a gradual loss of appetite, spirits, 

 and condition : the dog is less obedient to his master, and takes less notice 

 of him. The eyes appear weak and watery ; and there will be a very 

 slight limpid discharge from the nose. In the morning there will, per- 

 haps, be a little indurated mucus at the inner corner of the eye. This 

 may continue two or three weeks without serious or scarcely recognisable 

 illness. Then a peculiar husky cough is heard, altogether different 

 from the sonorous cough of catarrh, or the wheezing of asthma. It is an 



