ACUTE MENINGITIS. 233 
The manner of the attack will aid much in reaching a diagnosis. Acute 
meningitis generally follows an accident, injury, or exposure, or is developed 
in connection with some other disease. There is no melancholic stage, as in 
rabies, no shrinking from strangers; the disposition to worry articles, carpets, 
chair-legs, etc., to eat indigestible substances, to lap urine, cold stones, and 
iron, to stray away or attack other dogs, are all absent in meningitis. Again, 
while the voice is altered, the bark is short, sharp, and high in pitch, entirely 
unlike the hoarse, croupy, blended how] and wail heard in rabies. 
In that malady, wood-work is bitten, straw shaken in the teeth of animals 
infected, and sticks thrust at them are snapped at savagely, and clung to so 
fiercely they can be loosened only with great effort. In meningitis these symp- 
toms are absent. A sufferer from it bites at a stick extended, but almost im- 
mediately relinquishes it. Another important diagnostic difference is, while 
maniacal excitement occurs in paroxysms, not often can it be induced by worry- 
ing, as it would surely be were the victim mad. 
In rabies there appear peculiar illusions. The unfortunates see, as it were, 
bugs, spiders, or the like, crawling along the walls, and follow them with their 
eyes in their imaginary course. This symptom does not appear in meningitis; 
neither is there a constant disposition to bite other animals, as is the case in 
rabies. In the former affection vomiting generally occurs; and one more im- 
portant fact to be accentuated is, that it is an inflammatory disease, conse- 
quently the febrile movement is more or less marked; while fever is not a 
symptom of rabies. 
Acute meningitis is a grave disease, and recovery but rarely takes place. 
When developed in connection with other disorders, as distemper, the danger is 
intensified, and the chances are small indeed. 
A dog that exhibits its symptoms should be secured; and a measure of anx- 
iety will be removed if care in handling is observed. The timorous can use 
heavy buckskin gloves, and will doubtless feel safer for it, although after the 
presence of meningitis is positively determined, such precautions are needless. 
Perfect quiet should be enforced. The food to be relied on is milk, and 
that should be often put before the sufferer. 
When inactive, the bowels ought to be moved every second day by a 
cathartic. 
If convulsions occur and threaten to persist, ether may be administered. 
Since the chances of combating this disease are so few, and after a time 
a professional must be in quite constant attendance, to draw the urine with a 
catheter, if for no other purpose, the discussion of remedial measures need not 
be carried further. And even were recovery to occur, the cure would not likely 
be complete; consequently other treatment than is necessary to lessen the 
amount of: suffering as much as possible cannot be encouraged. 
