. General Diseases. 323 
“The many recent deaths of valuable puppies from distemper will doubtless 
‘induce breeders to give Professor Woodroffe Hill’s principle of inoculation an 
‘extended trial. We are able to say, from cases under our own observation, 
and from information received from various owners, that up to the present 
‘the operation has been attended with uniform success.” Efforts have been 
made, though unsuccessfully, to establish an identity between distemper 
and human typhoid fever: for, as Professor Axe pertinently remarks, ‘ Did 
‘distemper in the dog possess the property of communicating typhoid fever to 
man, it is difficult to understand how myself and others have so long escaped 
infection. During the past twelve years I have examined large numbers of 
‘distempered dogs immediately after death, and thus exposed myself to the 
emanations from every secretion and excretion of the body; but in no case 
have I suffered the least constitutional disturbance. This illustration, it may 
be argued, is worthless in itself, and is capable of explanation on the ground 
-of insusceptibility ; but the same remarks apply to scores of others who have 
been exposed from time to time in a similar manner.’’ In regard to the 
propagation of the typhoid contagium, Dr. Budd says: ‘“‘If the poison from 
which typhoid fever springs were capable of being bred elsewhere than in the 
human body, it would surely be in the bodies of animals which are made of 
flesh and blood like ourselves, and from whose substance we draw sustenance 
for our own. And yet it appears to be almost certain that this is not the 
case. In the most virulent outbreaks of typhoid fever, there is no evidence 
that the domestic animals which gather round the fever-stricken dwellings 
ever take the disease. At Cheffcombe, where nearly all the human inmates 
-of the infected homestead were laid low by the poison, the dogs and cats 
which belonged to the house, and the poultry, pigs, horses, and cattle which 
‘thronged the yard, continued to enjoy perfect health. Yet the pond from 
which the latter drank was being continually polluted by a drain which 
received the whole bulk of the intestinal discharges from the fever patients ! * 
‘The statement of ‘H. H.’ that the symptoms of distemper in the dog and 
‘typhoid fever in man are ‘alike,’ is true only so far as refers to the febrile 
state. The specific phenomena of the latter most surely find no counterpart 
yn the symptomatology of the former. It is only in the continued type of the 
fever that any identity can really be said to exist. If we examine the main 
features of the two affections, we find at once a broad and unmistakable 
difference in their clinical and pathological equivalents. : 
“Typhoid fever is an eruptive disease. Its course and duration are 
-definite, and the lesions resulting from the fever process are localised and 
specific. In distemper of the dog not one of these essential characters can 
be applied. The pathological ‘changes of the latter have no specific form or 
seat. Universal congestion, more or less intense, local inflammation, blood 
-extravasations, and serous exudation of varying extent, constitute the principal 
post-mortem phenomena.” + 
¥ This is strong evidence : sufficiently so to be conclusive.— 
+ From the Veterinarian, Feb., 1867. J. W. HL 
