PREFACE 
In presenting to the public this, the only work dealing 
exclusively with canine distemper, its complications and 
sequelz, I must at the outset express regret at my 
inability to further elucidate the mysteries—chiefly per- 
taining to etiology—which continue to exercise ourminds . 
and demand untiring investigations. This question of 
etiology has baffled the highest authorities since the 
disease was first recognised, and whilst it has unhappily 
not fallen to my humble lot to solve the problem, I have 
had to be content to review the malady generally and 
recapitulate the carefully collected theories and clinical 
facts devolved from the observations and investigations 
of e€minent veterinary and other authorities during the 
last seventy years. 
I venture to hope that this work will fulfil a distinct 
and apparently long felt want; inasmuch as, formerly, 
those desiring detailed information upon any phase of 
the disease were obliged to search endless papers, works, 
and proceedings of societies, before any tangible and 
collective facts could be elicited. 
I have endeavoured to present in readable form every 
detail concerning the spread of distemper, how it might 
be avoided, its symptoms, treatment, and sequelae, not 
omitting the latest ascertainable bacteriological findings 
_relative to its etiology and preventive inoculation, that 
the whole may prove of service as a book of reference for 
the practitioner and student. 
Distemper has probably not received the attention it 
would have done had the disease been communicable to 
man, or the cause of a very heavy annual pecuniary loss 
ix 
