22,6 Manresa: Hypersensitiveness of Philippine Dogs 579 



fairly common, and numerous reports to substantiate this fact 

 are on record. Winslow(l4) states that "dogs appear sometimes 

 extremely susceptible to strychnine." As remarked earlier, 

 however, the clinical experience of many veterinarians with the 

 administration of strychnine to dogs in the Philippines gives 

 rise to the assumption that a hypersusceptibility or idiosyncrasy 

 in these dogs is general and not exceptional. In order to 

 state definitely whether such general hypersusceptibility exists 

 or not either one or both of two proofs must be submitted: 

 First, either an exceedingly large percentage of variation in a 

 relatively small number of animals subjected to an experiment ; 

 or, second, a much larger number of individual cases of hyper- 

 sensitiveness necessitating of course a much more extensive 

 research into a larger number of animals. 



In the present experiment the results obtained conform to 

 those elicited by similar experiments performed in temperate 

 countries to the extent of 75 per cent. In the variation of 25 

 per cent the range of difference noted was in most cases very 

 slight It is obvious, however, that these results cannot justify 

 too hasty a generalization, and it is realized that the experi- 

 ment was not conducted upon a scale sufficiently extensive to 

 warrant the results being regarded as exhaustive or definitely 

 conclusive. It is recommended, therefore, that the experiment 

 be repeated and a more extensive research into a larger number 

 of dogs be undertaken with the purpose of arriving at a definite 

 solution of this rather important problem. 

 conclusions 



In conclusion, therefore, it must be said: 



1 That a general hypersusceptibility of native dogs to strych- 

 nine has not been shown to exist by the present experiment and 



2. That the apparent hypersusceptibility reported must b 

 explained as being due to one factor or to a combma^r i of h 

 following factors: (a) Relatively larger doses of strychn me 

 than those given in veterinary textbooks ^en used m the 

 Philippines (b) Too frequent administration of the drug. 

 (c) X peculiar hypersensitiveness or individual idiosyncrasy 



of isolated cases. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 



I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Louis P. Koster, pro- 

 fessor of veterinary hygiene, for his helpful = t,on. and 

 interest in this work; and to the Dean of the Co lege .of Veto 

 inary Science, Dr. A. S. Shealy, thanks are due for hi. en- 



