SYMPTOMS 123 
temperature in the early stages than that it should appear 
late in the disease. 
Subnormal Temperatures.—It is not uncommon to find 
the temperature has become subnormal after having 
reached its highest limit, a phenomenon which is accom- 
panied by a reduction in the number of heart-beats and 
respirations, restoration of appetite and vivacity. On 
the other hand, should the subnormal registration super- 
vene upon an attack which has throughout been charac- 
terised by some severe protracted symptoms, high 
temperature, emaciation, great exhaustion, and semi- 
coma, it is an infallible sign of impending death. The 
pulse becomes then almost imperceptible, respiration 
rapid and shallow, and the temperature may only be 
95° or 96° F. The animal is weak, anemic, perhaps even 
paralysed and collapsed. 
Miscellaneous Symptoms—£ maciation.—Emaciation, in 
greater or less degree, is practically inseparable from 
distemper, and where it gains a firm hold it bodes ill for 
the patient’s prospects of recovery. There is always 
a certain amount of wasting, even in those cases which 
are of the benign and transitory type, and it is sometimes 
difficult to explain why there should be. I have known 
it to become very marked in dogs which have been most 
liberally fed on the best of nourishing foods, and which 
have never had a temperature higher than 102° F. during 
the two or three weeks’ course of their attack. It is 
to be feared where its development is rapid, and the 
accompanying diarrhoea of a very stubborn exhausting 
nature, and there is a perceptible increase of weakness, 
together with the peculiar obnoxious and characteristic 
body odour. These signs are prognostic of a fatal 
termination. 
Muscular Symptoms.—Rarely, symptoms pertaining to 
parenchymatous degeneration of the cardiac muscle 
