THE FELINE PATIENT , 71 



become attached to places and rarely to indi- 

 viduals; they will tolerate people they are ac- 

 customed to, allowing them to handle, feed or 

 administer medicine to them without protest, 

 whereas with strangers, they often refuse food, 

 resist handling, and make full use of their 

 natural weapons of defense when submitted to 

 examination for the purpose of arriving at a 

 diagnosis. 



The cat when sick has the common charac- 

 teristic of all felines, that it invariably retires 

 to some secluded place and hides ; this tendency 

 coupled with neglect of the to'ilette is of great 

 value in arriving at the conclusion that the 

 animal is or is not well. 



The old saying that a cat has nine -lives is in 

 some ways correct, in others misleq.ding; that 

 the cat must be immune or nearly so to a host 

 of bacterial infections is proved by the fact 

 that, compared with other animals, the bacte- 

 rial diseases of the cat are few, especially when 

 one takes into consideration the chances of in- 

 fection that a cat is exposed to, by its wander- 

 ing habits and garbage can investigations, etc., 

 coupled with the constant cleaning of the coat 

 by licking. The highly strung nervous system 

 and remarkable agility .of the feline no doubt 

 enables him to avoid accidents and injuries to 

 which a slower and less agile animal would fall 

 a victim. On the other hand, the injured or 



