312 FEVERS AND THEIR TREATMENT. 



skin. In one case the disease may appear to be entirely confined 

 to the head, in another to the chest, and in a third to the bowels ; 

 yet it results from the same cause in each case, and requires the 

 same general plan of treatment, modified according to the seat of 

 the complication. 



When distemper is the result of neglect, it generally succeeds 

 some other disease which may have existed for an indefinite period. 

 The ordinary course of an attack of distemper, when epidemic, or 

 the result of contagion, is as follows : general dullness or lassitude, 

 together with loss of appetite are first observed. A peculiar husky 

 cough generally follows in a day or two, with sounds as if the dog 

 were trying to discharge a piece of straw from his throat. It al- 

 ways comes on at exercise after a gallop. With this there is also a 

 tendency to sneeze, but not so marked as the 4i husk " or " tissuck " 

 which may occur in common "cold " or influenza, and is then usu- 

 ally more severe, and also more variable in its severity ; soon 

 gjing on to inflammation, or else entirely ceasing in a few days. 

 In distemper, the strength and flesh rapidly fail and waste, while 

 in common "cold," the cough may continue for days without much 

 alteration in either; this is one of the chief characteristics of the 

 true disease. There is, also, generally a black pitchy condition of 

 the faeces, and the urine is scanty and high-colored. The white of 

 the eyes is always more or less reddened, the color being of a bluish 

 red cast, and the vessels being evidently gorged with blood. When 

 the brain is attacked, the eyes are more injected than when the 

 bowels or lungs is the seat of complication. The corners of the 

 eyes have a small drop of mucus, and the nos3 runs more or less, 

 wMch symptoms, as the disease goes on, are much aggravated, 

 both eyes being glued by brownish matter. The teeth are also cov- 

 ered with a blackish brown fur. These are the regular symptoms 

 of a severe attack of distemper, which gradually increases in sever- 

 ity to the third, fourth, or fifth week, when the dog dies from ex- 

 haustion, or from disease of the brain, lungs, or bowels, marked by 

 peculiar signs in each case. In this course the disease may be de- 

 scribed as passing through four stages or periods : 1st, that in which 

 the poison is spreading through the system, called the period of in- 



