GENERAL DROPSY. 39 



causes of epilepsy nothing is known, but its attacks are aggravated by improper 

 food, and by the addition of flesh without due preparation, as is often heedlessly 

 done just before the shooting season. 



The TREATMENT consists in attention to the general health, which is all that 

 can be done, as in confirmed epilepsy a cure is seldom effected. If recently 

 developed, bromide of potassium should be given in from 3 to 5 grain doses, and 

 this should be continued for at least a month or six weeks. 



By FITS may be understood those which occur to the puppy during dentition 

 or from distemper, both of which indicate either disease of the brain, or great 

 disturbance of the digestive apparatus in consequence of worms. These fits are 

 accompanied by slight convulsions, but no foaming at the mouth, and the dog is 

 not speedily recovered from them, but lies exhausted after he recovers his con- 

 sciousness. They are very fatal in distemper, being symptoms of great mischief 

 in the brain ; but they are not invariably fatal, because the severity of the fit does 

 not always indicate a corresponding degree of internal mischief. 



In their TREATMENT Mr. Mayhew recommended injections of ether and 

 laudanum ; but I can scarcely assign to this remedy the credit which he claims for 

 it, knowing that many epileptic fits are recovered from without any aid at all, and 

 finding that he classes all under the one head of "fits." In the kind I am now 

 considering, there is generally some exciting cause present, as distemper, or the 

 irritation of worms, or of teething ; and if these are removed, the fits will generally 

 subside, and, consequently, the whole attention should be directed to this object. 

 These fits seldom recur many times in succession, being either speedily fatal, or 

 else ending in a complete cure ; and in this respect they are unlike epilepsy, as well 

 as in their symptoms and treatment. 



GENERAL DROPSY. 



ANASAECA, or general dropsy in the dog, is not a very uncommon disease among 

 old kennelled dogs, owing to the improper way in which they are fed and kept 

 without exercise. It consists of an infiltration of serum from the blood vessels into 

 the cellular membrane, caused by the kidneys refusing to act, as a consequence 

 generally of inflammation ; and the disease, therefore, is merely a symptom of 

 inflammation of the kidneys, for which reason I might have classed it among the 

 inflammatory diseases, but that it sometimes occurs from a different condition of 

 that organ, owing to a want of tone in the general system. Its most frequent cause 

 is either improper stimulants in the case of the stallion greyhound, a very frequent 

 cause or a gross kind of food, or sometimes from simple over-crowding of the dogs 

 in a small kennel, occasioning a breaking down of the system, and an exudation of 

 serum as a consequence. Among over- stimulated pets, which are not allowed any 

 exercise, it is a very common disease, and often carries them off in a very dis- 

 gustingly loathsome condition. When the liver is in fault, by throwing too much 

 work upon the kidneys, as is sometimes the case, the urine is yellow, but in the 

 usual way it is highly charged with salts, and dark brown, not yellow. 



