DISEASES OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 51I 



and nutritious diet. If no cause can be assigned, the best treat- 

 ment consists of tonics, as iron, the barks, quinine, mineral acids, 

 etc. ; with these may be combined small doses of musk, assafoetida, 

 camphor, or other anti-spasmodics. Muriate of ammonia, oft- 

 times seems to be a specific, as does the fluid extract of the Aus- 

 tralian fever-tree — Eucalyptus. No definite treatment can be as- 

 signed ; you must work out the problem for yourself. See 41, 

 42, 43, 56, 59. 



Opium, bleeding, etc., are not to be thought of under any con- 

 sideration. Do not put stones in the ear of the sufferer with ex- 

 pectation of a cure ; it not unfrequently happens that some foreign 

 body in the ear is the cause of the attack. Where the disease is 

 the result of softening of the spinal cord or brain, it becomes 

 hopeless ; but it is more commonly the result of reflex irritation. 



All forms of so-called fits, as they occur in dogs, may be re- 

 ferred to this disorder. I may remark, too, that tape worm is the 

 most frequent cause of the disease. 



Chorea Sancti Viti. — Another disease of a spasmodic kind, 

 and essentially belonging to the nervous system, is Chorea — St. 

 Vitus' dance. This is far less serious in some respects than the 

 disease we have just had under consideration ; but it is very un- 

 pleasant to possess an animal suffering from this disorder. 



The pathology of this disease is obscure. None of the ana- 

 tomical researches hitherto made upon the subject, nor any study 

 of its symptoms, give us any positive information as to the real 

 point whence the morbid irritation of the motor nerves proceeds. 

 The result of the somewhat rare autopsies which have been either 

 negative, or else so discordant than any lesion discovered in the 

 central organs of the nervous system could not be referred to the 

 chorea, but rather to some accidental complication, or to the dis- 

 ease of which the patient died. The general implication of nearly 

 all the cerebro-spinal motor nerves altogether contradicts the sup- 

 position that the origin of the disease lies in -the peripheral nerves, 

 as has been claimed. The complete integrity of the other cere- 

 bral functions makes it improbable that the movements of the 

 chorea originate in the brain. On the other hand, certain pauses 

 in the muscular restlessness which occur, particularly during 

 sleep, would imply that the motor influence is derived from the 



