DISTEMPER. 375 
tions, but if it should do so, antipyrin must be resorted to, in doses already 
advised. 
It appears to be the rule with writers to recommend the use of poultices in 
pneumonia. Properly applied, the hair having been shaved off, they would 
likely prove beneficial, but as usually made, and in the hands of the ordinary 
non-professional, they must be productive of more harm than good, inviting as 
they do the taking of cold while being changed, as they must be every few 
hours. It is best therefore that they be dispensed with, and reliance placed 
on the thick jacket of flannel or cotton wadding, which will keep the chest 
warm and the air from it, more than which a poultice could scarcely do. 
It being necessary to change jackets once daily, it will be well when doing 
so to rub the chest with camphorated liniment or a liniment made of equal 
parts of the oil of turpentine and sweet-oil. 
As for blisters and setons, so generally recommended, their use cannot 
rightly be encouraged. 
If the victim of pneumonia occurring during an attack of distemper holds 
his own for three or four days, he will likely soon thereafter show signs of 
improvement, and eventually make a good recovery. Such happy results, 
however, are the exception, not the rule. 
The appetite improving, the patient may be tempted with and allowed 
anything within reason that he will take. But until he will eat enough volun- 
tarily, he must be forced to take nourishment. 
The fact that nourishment'can scarcely be safely forced into a patient 
oftener than once in three hours should be fully appreciated. When that 
method of feeding must be employed the digestive organs are weak, and to 
impose on them a duty at shorter intervals might result in upsetting them 
entirely. Hence to feed every half-hour or so, as has been sometimes advised, 
would be hazardous; and never oftener than two hours, and generally about 
every three hours, should be accepted as the only safe rule. 
The cough of pneumonia does not require treatment. Indeed it would be 
advisable to encourage it, if possible, for it is a natural measure of relief. 
If two patients down with distemper are quartered in the same room they 
should be separated as soon as one is attacked with inflammation of the lungs, 
for that trouble seems possessed of a tendency to spread. 
Dogs are not, like mankind, able to materially assist expectoration, there- 
fore in occasional cases of lung trouble they fill up until suffocation seems 
imminent. An emetic promises relief; and the wine of ipecac, having special 
virtues as an expectorant, may be used in the following doses: 
For largest breeds, two tablespoonfuls; breeds of medium size, one and 
one-half tablespoonfuls ; fox terriers, and the like, one tablespoonful ; toys, two 
teaspoonfuls. If vomiting has not occurred at the end of ten minutes a second 
dose should be administered. 
