360 The Management and Diseases of the Dog. 



dition sometimes follows swimming, particularly in cold 

 seasons of the year. The symptoms, though in some 

 respects not unlike those of rheumatism, differ from them 

 in the rapidity with which they pass off when warmth and 

 free circulation to the part are restored . The hind parts 

 are those generally affected. The treatment consists in 

 brisk exercise, and friction to the part. 



DISEASES OF THE HEART. 



Diseases of the heart are not very frequently met with in 

 canine practice, except as the result of complications of 

 other maladies. 



Fatty degeneration is, perhaps, the most common form 

 met with ; several instances of this I have seen when 

 making/(?jif-;«o;'/^»« examinations of animals. 



" In examining a heart thus diseased, the eye first notices 

 the fainter tracing, or the utter absence of those transverse 

 marks which cross the fibres of all the voluntary muscles, 

 and less distinctly those of the involuntary muscle, the 

 heart. In an early stage of the disease these cross-lines 

 are dimly seen, and the fibre is studded here and there with 

 small dark points. When the disease is more decidedly 

 expressed the dots are more numerous and the strije dis- 

 appear. These dots are little globules of oil lying within 

 the sheath of the fibre, they make it soft and friable. 



" The parts of the heart which have undergone this 

 change are altered in colour as well as in consistence. They 

 are pale, like a faded' leaf, or of a yellowish-brown, or a 

 muddy-pink colour, and they commonly have a spotty 01 

 mottled appearance. The change of texture varies in 

 degree and in extent It may render the muscle merely 

 soft and flabby, or it may reduce it to a state in which it 

 feels like a wet kid glove, and can be torn as readily as wet 

 brown paper. Every chamber of the heart is liable to this 

 kind of disease, but most of all the left ventricle, then the 



