38 EVERYTHING ABOUT DOGS. 



Time and patience, with treatment regularly given, are necessary in a case of 

 chorea, so don't expect a speedy result and you will not be disappointed, bearing 

 in mind always that your dog is worth all the expense, care and trouble you are 

 put to for him. 



Following are two cases of chorea and treatment advised in each, these given 

 as sample cases, and you may have a similar one, so I give them also: 



"I have an English setter, three years old, that was taken last February with 

 the distemper (that is what people called it) and then he began to twitch and jerk, 

 and jerks continually. He dreams and barks in his sleep. I have given him arsenic 

 and strychnine and other medicines, but nothing seems to help him. His appetite 

 is good and he likes to hunt. Please prescribe. Ans. Your dog has chorea, one of 

 the most difficult of all diseases to cure. Keep him in comfortable quarters, do not 

 exercise too violently nor excite, and give a pill three times a day, one-half hour 

 before meal time, containing nux vomica one and one-half grains, sulphate of iron 

 two grains, quinine one grain. Feed him anything he will eat. 



(1) I purchased a pointer dog, twenty-three months old. At that time his 

 right eye was inflamed and had matter in it; he was very thin in flesh. After I 

 brought him home I was told the dog had chorea. When at rest he will twitch his 

 eyes, also twitches all over his body; there is a slight trembling of his limbs and 

 he snuffs a good deal. Please diagnose case. Say if curable, and prescribe treat- 

 ment. (3) Would the dog be any good as a sire if not cured? Ans. Chorea, a 

 very difficult disease ~.o cure. Give a teaspoonful of the syrup of hypophosphites 

 three times a day, keep in warm quarters, feed anything he will eat,, do not over 

 exercise him, sponge the eye with a saturated solution of boracic acid twice a day, 

 and once a day use ten drops of the following in the eye: Sulphate of zinc five 

 grains, colorless hydrastis two drams, rosewater six drams. j(2.) He might. 



The following article on CHOKEA was written especially for this book by DENT: 



"Chorea is the most distressing nervous complaint dog owners are familiar 

 with. It is due to an involuntary nervous discharge of the motor cells controlling 

 certain muscles. The essential pathology of these more or less constant muscular 

 twitchings has baffled all scientific investigation, and careful microscopic autopsies, 

 extending from the nerve terminus in a muscle back to the cord and brain, have 

 failed to reveal a lesion that can be considered a^cause. 



"The most satisfactory theory is that the brain cells controlling a certain mus- 

 cle or set of muscles are so weakened by the poison of distemper or some other 

 cause as to cause them to send out muscular impulses without natural mental im- 

 pulse or will power. 



"There is a form of chorea, due to a disturbed nervous system, induced by blows 

 or injuries to the, or the presence of intestinal parasites which have deranged the, 

 digestive organs. This form of chorea is generally curable. The form which fol- 

 lows distemper is not so amenable to treatment. 



"The symptoms are so prominent and characteristic that there is no mistak- 

 ing the disease, and the peculiar involuntary twitching of the muscles once seen 

 is never forgotten. The entire body may be affected; generally it is only one set 

 of muscles, those of the foreleg or of the neck and shoulders, in which case the 

 head bobs up and down in a most helpless manner. Where the hindlegs are affected 

 the dog will suddenly drop one of the limbs from the hip downward as if there 

 was an entire loss of strength and power. This is particularly noticeable if it 

 attempts to jump on a chair or table, for, after one or two attempts, it falls on its 

 side or in a heap, completely helpless. 



