SYMPTOMS 117 
complete unconsciousness, the animal being unable to 
feed, and the rigid contortion is maintained for hours 
and sometimes even days. 
In my experience it has always terminated in deep 
coma and death, the patient’s temperature being sub- 
normal and the pulse hardly discernible, 
Spinal Meningitis.—Arising in connection with toxic 
diseases such as distemper and rabies, one sometimes, 
though rarely, observes cases of spinal meningitis in 
which the pia mater is the membrane most affected, 
and paralysis is occasioned—chiefly of the posterior 
extremities, but sometimes also of the anterior. Con- 
sciousness is practically never lost, but hyperzesthesia 
may be marked, the animal constantly gnawing at certain 
parts of its body, and the penis in a constant state of 
erection; owing to contraction of the sphincters the 
evacuation of urine and feeces may be impeded, and the 
animal will howl or show other evidence of pain when 
touched, especially along the back. 
At later or more serious stages the sphincters of the 
bladder and anus may also become paralysed, and the 
animal be subject to incontinence. 
If and when the animal becomes moribund, the skin 
when gathered up in one’s hand remains so for a few 
minutes, having lost all its power of contractility, and 
this is always to be regarded as a very ominous sign. — 
1V. Exanthematous Symptoms.—A great number of the 
earlier authors regarded the cutaneous eruption some- 
times manifested in cases of distemper as a true variolous 
disease, or “dog pox.” This was disproved by many 
experimenters from the fact that vaccination with cultures 
prepared from the pustules produced pustules and little 
else, and conferred no immunity; also from the fact that 
these cultures have practically always given pure growths 
of staphylococci. 
