THE DISTEMPER. 83 



disease, escape it when exposed to the effluvia or the 

 contact of the morbid secretions received on a mncoiis 

 or an ulcerated surface. Yet inoculation with dis- 

 temper virus frequently fails to produce it, and the 

 disposition to receive the contagion is likewise not 

 always in equal force, but it appears stronger and 

 weaker, at various periods in the same animal, and is 

 perhaps under the controul of the accidental changes 

 in healthfulness of habit, &c., &c. Cold applied in 

 any noxious manner to the system, is a very common 

 origin of the complaint ; throwing into water, washing, 

 and not after drying the animal, unusual exposure 

 during the night, &c., are frequently causes of dis- 

 temper, in young and tender dogs. I have seen it 

 produced by violent hemorrage, by a sudden change 

 from a full to a low diet, and in fact, any great or 

 sudden derangement in the system is sufficient to call 

 the predisposition into action. The usual period 

 of its attack is that of puberty, or when the dog attains 

 his full growth ; in some it is protracted to two, three, 

 or even many years old, and a very few escape it 

 altogether. The having once passed through the 

 disease, is not a certain preventive to a future attack. 

 It occasionally appears a second time, and an instance 

 fell under my notice of a third recurrence, with the 

 intervention of two years between each attack." 



In another place Mr. Blaine says, in speaking of 

 the effects produced by the distemper. " The import- 

 ance of the subject renders it not improper again 

 to repeat, that of all the symptoms that appear 

 the epileptic convulsions are the most fatal. It is, 

 therefore, of the utmost consequence to prevent their 



G 2 



