TYPHUS FEVER, OR DISTEMPER, 369 
or developed within the blood; by which the various secretions are 
either totally checked or so altered as no longer to purify the 
system. The exact nature of this poison is beyond our present 
state of knowledge, but from analogy there is little doubt that it 
resides in the blood. As in all cases of poison absorbed into the 
system, there is a most rapidly depressing effect upon the muscular 
powers, which is to be expected, inasmuch as their action requires 
a constant formation of new material from the blood; and as this 
is retarded in common with all other functions, the muscles waste 
away rapidly, and their contractions are not performed with any 
strength. The disease is sometimes contracted by infection, and 
at others developed within the body; just as in the case of fer- 
mentation in vegetable substances there may be a ferment added 
to a saccharine solution, by which the process is hastened, although 
if left to itself it will come on in due course. 
The symptoms are very various, but they may be divided into 
two sets, one of which comprises a set always attending upon 
distemper, while the other may or may not be present in any 
individual attack. The invariable symptoms are—a low insidious 
fever, with prostration of strength to a remarkable degree, in pro- 
portion to, the duration and strength of the attack, and rapid 
emaciation, so that a thick muscular dog is often made quite thin 
and lanky in three days. Asa part of the fever there is shivering, 
attended by quick pulse, hurried respiration, loss of appetite, and 
impaired secretions ; but, beyond these, there are no signs which 
can be called positively invariable; though the running at the eyes 
and nose and the short husky cough, especially after exercise, are _ 
very nearly always present. The accidental symptoms depend 
upon the particular complication which may exist ; for one-of the 
most remarkable features in distemper is that, eoupled with the 
above invariable symptoms, there may be congestion, or inflamma- 
tion of the head, chest, bowels, or skin. So that in one case the 
disease may appear to be entirely confined to the head, in another 
to the chest, and in a third to the bowels; yet all are strictly from 
the same cause, and require the same general plan of treatment, 
modified according to the seat of the complication. 
The ordinary course of an attack of distemper is as follows ; that 
is, when .contracted by contagion or clearly epidemic. (On ‘the 
2A 
