ABC GUIDE TO CANINE AILMENTS. 
to the general health. 
avoid all starchy foods. 
cise, and give Virol. 
Deformities.— Can only be treated by an ex- 
pert after careful examination and thought. 
Destroying Puppies.—Drowning, even in warm 
water, is painful, because lingering. The best 
plan is the ugliest. Take one up and dash with 
great force on the stone floor. It is dead at once. 
N.B.—Never do so before the dam. 
Destroying Useless Dogs.—I have often coun- 
selled the giving of morphia in sufficiently large 
doses to cause sleep, and then carefully chloro- 
forming. After all, the strongest prussic acid is 
the most certain and the quickest, but a vet. only 
should administer it. 
Diabetes.— Both that form called Mellitus or 
sugary diabetes and Diabetes insipidus are in- 
curable; the former, at all events. 
Symptoms.—-The earliest symptom will be ex- 
cessive diuresis, combined with inordinate thirst. 
The coat is harsh and dry and staring, the bowels 
constipated, the mouth hot and dry, and probably 
foul. Soon emaciation comes on, and the poor 
animal wastes rapidly away. Sometimes the ap- 
petite fails, but more often it is voracious, especi- 
ally with regard to flesh meat. The dog is 
usually treated for worms, and the case made 
worse. The disease is a very fatal one, and if 
fairly set in, can seldom be kept from running 
its course onwards to death. Death may take 
place from other and secondary diseases. 
Tumours form in the lungs, the liver becomes 
diseased, and the bowels seldom escape till the 
last. 
Treatment. —Exceedingly unsatisfactory. I 
have found the most benefit accrue from treating 
canine patients in the same way as I do human 
beings suffering similarly. I therefore do not 
hesitate to order the bran loaf if the animal is 
worth the trouble, and forbid the use of potatoes, 
rice, flour, oatmeal, and most vegetables, and 
feed mostly on flesh, and occasionally beef-tea 
and milk. Give from !% grain up to 3 grains of 
opium (powdered), and the same quantity of 
quinine in a bit of Castile soap, twice or thrice 
daily. You may try Virol and wx vomica. 
Diarrhoea, or looseness of the bowels, or purg- 
ing, is a very common disease among dogs of all 
ages and breeds. It is, nevertheless, more com- 
mon among puppies about three or four months 
old, and among dogs who have reached the age 
of from seven to ten years. It is often symp- 
tomatic of other ailments. 
Causes.—Very numerous. In weakly dogs ex- 
posure alone will produce it. The weather, too, 
has no doubt much to do with the production of 
diarrhoea. In most kennels it is more common 
in the months of July and August, although it 
often comes on in the very dead of winter. Pup- 
pies, if overfed, will often be seized with this 
troublesome complaint. A healthy puppy hardly 
ever knows when it has had enough, and it will, 
moreover, stuff itself with all sorts of garbage; 
If fat, reduce diet and 
If thin, feed well, exer- 
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acidity of the stomach follows, with vomiting of 
the ingesta, and diarrhea succeeds, brought on by 
the acrid condition of the chyme, which finds its 
way into the duodenum. This stuff would in 
itself act as a purgative, but it does more, it 
abnormally excites the secretions of the whole 
alimentary canal, and a sort of sub-acute mucous 
inflammation is set up. The liver, too, becomes 
mixed up with the mischief, throws out a super- 
abundance of bile, and thus aids in keeping up 
the diarrhea. 
Among other causes, we find the eating of in- 
digestible food, drinking foul or tainted water, 
too much green food, raw paunches, foul kennels, 
and damp, draughty kennels. 
Symptoms.—The purging is, of course, the 
principal symptom, and the stools are either quite 
liquid or semi-fluid, bilious-looking, dirty-brown 
or clay-coloured, or mixed with slimy mucus. 
In some cases they resemble dirty water. Some- 
times, as already said, a little blood will be found 
in the dejection, owing to congestion of the 
mucous membrane from liver obstruction. In 
case there be blood in the stools, a careful ex- 
amination is always necessary in order to ascer- 
tain the real state of the patient. Blood, it must 
be remembcred, might come from piles or polypi, 
or it might be dysenteric, and proceed from ul- 
ceration of the rectum and colon. In the simplest 
form of diarrhoea, unless the disease continues for 
a long time, there will not be much wasting, and 
the appetite will generally remain good but 
capricious, 
In bilious diarrhea, with large brown fluid stools 
and complete loss of appetite, there is much thirst, 
and in a few days the dog gets rather thin, 
although nothing like so rapidly as in the emacia- 
tion of distemper. 
The Treatment will, it need hardly be said, 
depend upon the cause, but as it is generally 
caused by the presence in the intestine of some 
irritating matter, we can hardly err by adminis- 
tering a small dose of castor-oil, combining with 
it, if there be much pain—which you can tell 
by the animal’s countenance—from 5 to 20 or 30 
drops of laudanum, or of the solution of the 
muriate of morphia. This in itself will often 
suffice to cut short an attack. The oil is prefer- 
able to rhubarb, but the latter may be tried—the 
simple, not the compound powder—dose, from 
10 grains to 2 drachms in bolus. 
If the diarrhcea should continue next day, pro- 
ceed cautiously—remember there is no great 
hurry, and a sudden check to diarrheea is at times 
dangerous—to administer dog doses of the aro- 
matic chalk and opium powder, or give the follow- 
ing medicine three times a day: Compound pow- 
dered catechu, 1 grain to 10; powdered chalk 
with opium, 3 grains to 30. Mix. If the diar- 
rhoea still continues, good may accrue from a trial 
of the following mixture: Laudanum, 5 to 30 
drops; dilute sulphuric acid, 2 to 15 drops; in 
camphor water. 
This after every 
liquid motion, or, if the 
