106 KENNEL DISEASES. 
advisable, considering that a seeming case of peritonitis might be one of intes- 
tinal obstruction merely. Cathartics, however, are forbidden. 
As for the diet, that may be the-same as in severe intestinal inflammation. 
Whiskey or brandy must be given if collapse is threatened. 
In a word, to make the applications advised, narcotize the patient and keep 
him narcotized, and maintain his strength by means of concentrated foods and 
stimulants, is about all that can be rightly done in the way of treatment. 
DIARRHGA. 
Diarrhcea is not a disease in itself but merely a symptom that attends many 
conditions of ill-health. Speaking generally and using the popular expression, it 
is looseness of the bowels, the discharges being excessively frequent and more 
fluid than usual. 
It may be acute or chronic; and the following are the principal varieties of 
the first form, together with their causes : — 
Irritative diarrhoea includes all diarrhceas which are produced by agents which 
irritate the lining membrane of the alimentary canal, as attacks attended by pain 
and griping that occur in puppies in consequence of excessive acidity of the 
mother’s milk, or improper feeding after weaning. In these little ones, also, 
such attacks are very frequently caused by worms. In mature dogs this form of 
diarrhcea may be induced by over-eating, food that is very difficult of digestion, 
or foods to which the digestive organs are not accustomed. Again, tainted foods, 
as mouldy bread, and milk that has been long exposed to foul emenations in 
very hot weather, are capable of causing it. As for meats and their products 
that have undergone putrefactive changes, to the poisons generated in them many 
of the attacks of this variety of diarrhoea in man can safely be attributed. Mem- 
bers of the canine race, however, have a far stronger inherent capability of 
resisting these noxious agents, and one that would render their masters danger- 
ously ill might not have any appreciable effect on them. But still there are lim- 
its to this fortunate provision, and these are varied somewhat by the conditions 
of life. Moreover, experience has taught that, occasionally at least, meats and 
soups, long kept and exposed to bad and hot air, are the causes of irritative 
diarrhoea ; and the same may be said of fou: water. Bones are also occasional 
causes of the trouble in dogs, but, thanks to nature, only those that are large or 
very hard and have sharp points or edges are sufficiently irritating ; and they even 
are harmful only when digestion is weak. When the natural refuse, which should 
be thrown out by the bowel, becomes dry and hard, or in other words there is con- 
stipation of long standing, the lumps may act in the same way as foreign sub- 
_ Stances. En passant it is well to say that such may still be in the bowels even 
