DOGS : THEIR MANAGEMENT. 135 



Everything concerning distemper is by the generality 

 of the public misunderstood. Most people imagine a 

 dog can have the distemper but once in its life ; whereas 

 I had a patient that underwent three distinct attacks in 

 one autumn, that of 1849. The majority of persons who 

 profess an intimate knowledge of the dog will tell you 

 distemper is a disorder peculiar to the young ; whereas I 

 know of no age that is exempt from its attack. I have 

 known dogs, high-bred favorites, to be left with men 

 selected because of their supposed familiarity with dog 

 diseases ; and these very men have brought to me the 

 animals in the fits which are the wind-up of distemper, 

 yet notwithstanding have been ignorant that their 

 charges had any disease whatever. All the stages and 

 symptoms of ordinary distemper may appear and depart 

 unnoticed ; but it is widely different with yellow distem- 

 per, for when the yellowness appears, it is so marked 

 that no description of a peculiar symptom need be in- 

 serted, since it cannot be overlooked or mistaken. It is 

 attended with excessive debility, and, unless properly 

 combated, is rapidly fatal. 



The stomach and intestines are always involved ; I 

 have never known a case in which either escaped. The 

 affection of the first is generally shown by sickness 

 during the earliest stage ; when also the derangement 

 of the last is denoted by either costiveness or relaxation, 

 the bowels never being perfectly regular ; towards the 

 latter stages, or about the third or fourth week, the appe- 

 tite sometimes becomes enormous ; the craving for food 



