56 Veterinary Medicine. 



The attack usually lasts for two or three minutes, then the 

 convulsions gradually lessen in intensity and finally cease, the 

 dog raises his head, opens his eyes, and gazes inquiringly around. 

 Then he gets on his feet, shakes himself and may at once resume 

 his customary habits. In other cases the restoration is less sud- 

 den. The dog remains for 30 to 60 minutes dull and stupid, or 

 seems to have little power of control over its muscles and stag- 

 gers as if intoxicated, or as if the muscles were benumbed. It 

 may drop on its knees and then fall with the head on the ground 

 and repeat this several times. In other cases the dog wanders 

 around, or trots off and may snap at any one interfering with 

 him, so that the case is often mistaken for one of rabies. Fi/ially 

 the animal may remain prostrate and fall into a deep sleep marked 

 by stertorous breathing. 



Diagnosis. The diagnosis of epilepsy is usually easy. The 

 suddenness of the attack, the loss of consciousness, the muscular 

 spasms, the complete temporary recovery and the tendency to 

 recur, form a toute ensemble, which is pathognomonic. The danger 

 of confounding this with other nervous disorders is on the whole 

 greatest in the slight cases in which the symptoms are less typical. 



From Syncope it is easily distinguished by the spasms which 

 are not present in syncope. 



From eclampsia it is not so easy to diagnose, but the line be- 

 tween eclampsia and epilepsy has not been accurately drawn, 

 and some have even shown a disposition to drop eclampsia from 

 medical nomenclature. Eclampsia may be defined as general 

 convulsions dependent on some eccentric irritation, and which do 

 not recur after such irritation has been removed. This would 

 remove from the category of epileptic attacks the cases of convul- 

 sions in which the attacks were due to intestinal or nasal parasites, 

 dentition, irritation, tumors pressing on nerves, canine distemper 

 and other infectious diseases. So far the distinction might be 

 made by the diagnosis of the particular disease on which the 

 convulsions depend. There remains however a class of cases in 

 which the centric nervous disorder on which the epileptic seizure 

 depends is present, and also the peripheral source of irritation 

 (worms, etc.). In such a case the presence of the worms or 

 other eccentric source of irritation, even if added to the fact that 

 this was the immediate exciting cause of the epileptic explosion, 



