Diseases of the Skin. 239 
body suffer, but especially the thin skin on the inner 
sides of the arms, thighs, and over the belly. The skin 
.is very red, and covered with vesicles or small bladders, 
which are sometimes isolated, or otherwise running to- 
gether form larger vesicles, which shortly burst, and 
drying on the surface, agglutinates the hairs into tufts or 
masses of various size. Somewhat later they decompose, 
emitting a putrid odour. Severe irritation follows, to 
allay which the dog bites, scratches, or tears himself 
severely, producing sores which, in many cases, yield to 
no treatment. This is especially the case with those 
which occur on the loose skin in the bend of joints, a 
chronic state being general throughout the disease. 
Ultimately the skin assumes one or other of the following 
forms, viz., a constant state’ of scurfiness with loss of hair, 
or the skin is immensely thickened, drawn into folds 
destitute of hair, and exhibiting ugly cracks, at the bottom 
of which ulceration, with more or less discharge, proceeds. 
At certain local points also, large and bare tumours of 
similar callous substance are found, as on the elbows and 
buttocks, states especially common to animals kept in 
confinement and subjected to neglect.. 
Treatment.—First open the bowels by a dose of the 
castor-oil mixture ; or in the early stages of the acute 
form reduce the dose one-third, and subsequently give 
-salines, as Epsom salts. Some prefer opium and calomel 
. in one-grain doses of each daily, a remedy seldom used 
with safety in the hands of amateurs in medicine. Such 
remedies secure the reduction of fever, after which tonics, 
as iron and gentian, or the Aguor arsenicalts, are indi- 
cated, especially if debility sets in early. Special forms 
of fever arising from the severity of the skin affection 
may call for very active measures, as opium and calomel 
internally, with repeated fomentations, or baths of hot 
water containing glycerine and boracic acid, or even 
opium. Chronic cases are not always manageable, yet 
good may. be done by repeated dressings with lunar 
caustic, and the skin generally dressed with zinc oint- 
ment. The disease is apt to exhibit phases of severe 
excitement, the result of change in temperature and 
