Diseases of the Liver and Spleen. gt 
two to four drops twice a day, often assist recovery and 
keep a clean palate; or the iodide of potassium, in five to 
ten grain doses, may be tried. Plain unstimulating food 
and free exercise should be allowed, and a relaxed condition 
of the bowels maintained. 
Chronic hepatitis, from interference in the portal circula- 
tion, often terminates in ascites, more particularly inold dogs. 
_ (See “ Dropsy.”) 
JAUNDICE (IcTerus). 
This is an affection to which dogs are peculiarly liable. 
Greyhounds have been stated to be more generally the sub- 
ject of it than other breeds. My experience of the disease, 
however, has been chiefly confined to the smaller breeds, 
especially pampered house-dogs. 
Jaundice may exist alone, or be associated with other 
affections, particularly distemper, in which, by dog-men, it 
is usually separated from the malady giving rise to it, and 
treated independently as the “Yellows.” (See “ Dis- 
temper.”) 
Causes. —Suppression orretention of bile, more particularly 
the latter, which becomes re-absorbed into the system.* 
* Sir Thomas Watson, in his lecture on this subject, says: “There 
can be no doubt that when the bile, after being formed in the liver, is 
detained there, or in the gall-bladder, in consequence of some impedi- 
ment to its excretion, it is re-absorbed—both by the lymphatic vessels 
and by the veins—carried into the circulation, and so conveyed to the 
surface, and to the parts in which the change ofcolour isobserved. In 
the beginning of the present century, Dr. Saunders, of Guy’s Hospital, 
made, on this subject, some conclusive experiments, which have since 
been repeated by others with similar results. The hepatic duct of a dog 
having been tied, and the animal killed two hours afterwards, the nu- 
merous lymphatics in the walls of the bile-ducts were seen to be dis- 
tended with a yellow fluid; the fluid in the thoracic duct also was yellow; 
and so were the intervening lymphatic glands. Again, two hours after 
the ligation of the hepatic duct, the serum of blood taken from the he- 
patic vein was found to contain much more of the colouring matter of 
the bile, than that of blood taken from the jugular vein in the neck. 
That bile is capable of being taken up by the absorbents is further ap- 
parent from the fact that when the cystic duct is permanently shut, the 
bile disappears gradually, but entirely, from the gall-bladder. 
