338 The Management and Diseases of the Dog. 
sible those causes which predispose or give rise to obesity 
The food should be less fattening, and more sparinglygiven. 
Daily and somewhat vigorous exercise should be allowed. 
Where the deposition has a tendency to increase in spite of 
these observances, small doses of iodine may be given with 
benefit, along with an occasional aperient. 
RHEUMATISM. 
Dogs are frequently affected with this “human misery,’ 
It may locate itself in the joints (articular rheumatism) or 
in the muscles, chiefly their tendinous portions, producing 
tumbago and “ chest-founder.” 
Causes. — Rheumatism chiefly arises from exposure to 
damp and cold; hence its frequency in kennel dogs, and 
during those seasons of the year when the causes named 
prevail—spring and autumn. 
The disease assumes an acute and a chronic form. An 
attack of the former frequently terminates in the latter, 
which may remain through life, and become increased in 
severity with changes of temperature; or, if the former 
disappears without degenerating into the latter, periodical 
returns of it very often occur. As in human beings, 
valvular disease of the heart is one of the serious com- 
plications of rheumatism which generally, sooner or later, 
cause the death of the animal. 
Acute rheumatism has been conjectured to depend upon 
the presence of lactic acid in the blood.* 
* “The acid properties of the perspiration, as manifested even by 
its peculiar smell—of the saliva, as tested by litmus paper—of the urine, 
as shown by its deposits, warrant the hypothesis that the poison which 
the whole disorder would seem to be an effort to discharge from the 
blood, is some sort of acid. Dr. Prout conjectured that the phenomena 
of acute rheumatism might depend upon the presence in the blood of 
éactts acid; and some very remarkable experiments made by Dr. 
Richardson lend weight and likelihood to this conjecture. Into the 
(peritoneum of a healthy cat he introduced a solution of lactic acid in 
