ECZEMA. 287 
Of the causes of eczema from within less is understood, but it is known that 
to injudicious feeding many of the cases are attributable; and in this connec- 
tion it is proper to urge that, paradoxical as it may seem, eczema may be caused 
by over-feeding or by under-feeding; a highly inflammable state of the blood re- 
sulting from the former, and impoverishment of the blood from the latter ; which 
conditions greatly favor this disease. Flesh foods also play an important part in 
its causation; and while too much meat generally causes it, by a deprivation of 
meat the system becomes debilitated, and thus the occurrence of eczema is in- 
vited as it were. On the other hand, starchy foods in excess induce disturbances 
of the nutritive functions, and eczema frequently results in consequence. 
A very obstinate form also comes from chronic indigestion or dyspepsia. 
Want of exercise, and unclean and otherwise unhealthy kennels, are included 
among the causes; so, too, are influences, derangements or diseases that 
debilitate the system or impoverish the blood. There seems also to exist 
an unusual tendency to eczema among dogs of highly nervous temperaments, 
which is notable especially among those much inbred. That the disease is 
hereditary, as some writers have asserted, has not been proved; but even if 
not so, it is certainly more prone to occur in the offspring of eczematous pro- 
genitors than in others of families to which the affection is comparatively un- 
known. Its frequent occurrence with worms, and during gestation and dentition, 
suggests a relationship which in cases of worms especially seems quite intimate. 
If eczema is contagious, it is assuredly not highly so; but in certain stages, 
when the oozing is profuse, the disease can be communicated by actual con- 
tact provided it is of sufficient duration. To be more explicit, a healthy dog 
might play with one affected with eczema and be many times in momentary 
contact without acquiring the disease ; but were they allowed to occupy the same 
sleeping-box, and the healthy skin of one remained long in contact with the 
diseased skin of the other, from which there exuded the characteristic fluid, 
through this secretion the disease might be transmitted, and the healthy animal 
become eczematous. 
Although under proper treatment eczema ought to yield quite readily, as 
stated in the beginning, as a rule it is a troublesome affection, and often proves 
very rebellious, especially in long-haired dogs. Moreover, once a dog is a vic- 
tim, he is peculiarly liable to suffer from it again. 
In this connection it is interesting to note that Hunter, one of the brightest 
lights in dermatology, divided skin diseases that affect mankind into three 
classes: ‘‘ Those that sulphur would cure, those that mercury would cure, and 
those that the devil himself couldn’t cure.’? Varying the remedies, and assuming 
dogs to be the patients, he would scarcely stray far who adopted much the same 
classification for eczema at the present day. 
Before undertaking to effect a cure, the conditions of each case should be 
carefully analyzed, with the view of correcting hygienic or other faults in man- 
