78 DISTEMPER 



expect, from the continual and laborious occupation 

 which clogs of all descriptions are doomed to undergo 

 when working in cover, is generally of not so for- 

 midable a character, as when that member meets with 

 severe injury in the horse ; still it is attended with 

 much danger, and the total loss of the organ is some- 

 times the consequence of a puncture from a thorn or a 

 misaimed blow from the lash of a whip. 



SECTION FIRST. 



THE DISTEMPER, 



Which is the first disease to which hounds are generally 

 subject, is in the opinion of all men the most fatal 

 which has ever discovered itself in the canine race ; 

 thousands are annually swept off by this dreadful plague, 

 and as it breaks out in so many various forms, the 

 possibility of finding remedies to counteract it is 

 rendered far more difficult. In the report of the 

 veterinary medical association for March, 1838, a Mr. 

 Simonds, in expressing his congratulations at the 

 prospect of the diseases of dogs becoming the subject 

 of inquiry amongst the veterinarians of the present day, 

 goes on to say, that " distemper is primarily an affec- 

 tion of the Schneiderian membrane ; thence, in certain 

 constitutions, it is transmitted to the lungs, and we 

 have pneumonia in one of its various forms ; sometimes 

 to the intestines, and we have diarhoea and dysentry, 

 and sometimes by simple proximity, or through the 

 medium of the ethmoidal processes it attacks the brain, 

 and we have epilepsy ;" and very justly adds, " it is 

 clear that we have no specific for such a disease." 

 There certainly is no specific for the distemper ; and 



