PBTHISIS, OR CONSUMPTION. 335 



or house dogs, which do not have much exercise. The symptoms 

 and treatment are detailed under the head of Chronic Bronchitis. 

 There is, however, a form of true asthma, accompanied with 

 spasms, among the same kind of dogs, the symptoms of which are 

 much more urgent. They comprise a sudden difficulty in breath- 

 ing, so severe that the dog manifestly gasps for breath ; still there 

 is no evidence of inflammation. This malady may be known by the 

 suddenness of the attack, inflammation being comparatively slow 

 in its approach. The treatment consists in the administration of 

 an emetic (45), followed by the cough bolus (46), or the draught 

 (47). If the spasms are very severe, a full dose of laudanum and 

 ether must be given, viz. 1 drachm of laudanum, and 30 drops of 

 the ether, in water, every three hours, until relief is afforded. 

 The mustard embrocation (42), or the turpentine liniment (43), 

 may be rubbed on the chest with great advantage. 



PHTHISIS, OR CONSUMPTION. 



Though very often fatal among highly-bred animals, phthisis 

 or consumption -has not been noticed by writers on dog dis- 

 eases, neither Blain, Youatt, nor Mayhew making the slightest 

 allusion to it. I have, however, seen so many cases of tubercular 

 diseases in the dog, that I cannot doubt its existence as an ordinary 

 affection. Furthermore, I know that hundreds of canines die 

 every year from it. I have seen the tubercules in almost every 

 stage of softening, and I have known scores of cases in which a 

 blood-vessel has given way, producing the condition known in 

 the human being as spitting of blood. 



The symptoms of consumption are, a slow insidious cough, with- 

 out fever in the early stage, followed by emaciation, and ending, 

 after some months, in diarrhoea, or exhaustion from the amount of 

 expectoration, or in the bursting of a blood-vessel. This last is 

 generally, the termination in those dogs that are kept for use, the 

 work to which they are subjected leading to excessive action of 

 the heart, which is likely to burst the vessel. In the latter stages 



