ABC GUIDE TO CANINE AILMENTS. 
The following is a safe and simple tonic pill, 
one to be given twice daily: Sulphate of quinine, 
% to 3 grains; sulphate of iron, % to 6 grains; 
extract of taraxacum, 3 grains to 10. Make into 
a bolus. 
Dyspepsia, Acute. — Inflammation of the 
stomach is a very fatal and very painful disease 
in the dog, though happily somewhat rare. It 
is supposed by most authorities to be a disorder 
that may originate as an idiopathic or primary 
disease, but it is more often the result of an irri- 
tant poison, or the administration by ignorant 
kennelmen of excessive doses of tartar emetic. 
It is doubtful, however, whether it ever presents 
itself as a primary disease. But supposing a case 
of acute gastritis to come before a veterinary 
practitioner, and granting that a chemical ex- 
amination or analysis of the matter vomited may 
prove that the animal has swallowed no metallic 
poison or any well-known vegetable poison, how 
can he be sure that the symptoms have not been 
brought on by some animal irritant, or even some 
decomposed vegetable matter which the dog may 
have eaten? 
Symptoms.—There is vomiting, great thirst, 
high fever; the animal stretches himself on his 
belly in the very coolest corner he can find, pant- 
ing, and in great pain. Enteritis generally ac- 
companies bad cases; the ears are cold, and the 
limbs as well. Dark grumous blood may be 
vomited, or pure blood itself, from the rupture 
of some artery. And thus the poor dog may 
linger for some days in a most pitiful condition. 
Finally he is convulsed and dies, or coma puts 
a milder termination to his sufferings. 
Treatment of milder forms of gastritis. 
Recipe: Dilute hydrocyanic acid, 1 to 10 drops; 
laudanum, 5 to 25 drops; solution of chloroform, 
2 drachms to 1 ounce. This to be given as a 
draught. 
The warm bath, and hot fomentations after- 
wards to the region of the stomach, may give 
relief, and the strength must be kept up by 
nutritive exemata—beef-tea mixed in cream. In 
simple cases 3 to 30 grains of the trisnitrate of 
bismuth may be given, a quarter of an hour before 
each meal. This is good also in irritative dys- 
pepsia, mixed with a little of the bicarbonate of 
soda. 
Ear in Health.—They are only quacks who, 
careless of what sufferings they may entail on 
poor dogs or human beings either, pretend that 
they can cure almost any ear trouble by nostrums 
poured into it. If the deafness and other ear 
diseases depended only upon an accumulation of 
wax in the tube of the outer ear or even a slight 
inflammation of that orifice, there might be some 
little sense in such applications. But the deaf- 
ness is more deeply seated, and may be caused by 
disease of the nerves, which proceed from the brain 
itself. The internal ear, or real organ or machinery 
of hearing, is never reached by the quack’s lotions. 
They could only reach it if the drum was pierced 
by disease, and then they would produce such 
605 
terrible suffering that the dog would become 
maniacal. The orifice of the ear is a short tube, 
one end open to the outside, the other closed by a 
thin membrane called the drum, which separates 
it from the inner ear. Across this latter stretches 
a chain of beautifully arranged bones of the tini- 
est size, three links in all, each link a bone— 
the malleus, or hammer; the imcus, or anvil; and 
the stapes, or stirrup, so named from their resem- 
blance in shape to these things. The drum is 
connected by means of this chain with a delicate 
membrane in which the minute branches of the 
nerves of hearing are spread. From the back of 
the throat to the internal ear is a tube called the 
Eustachian, which supplies it with air, and if 
this tube is blocked, as it is sometimes in catarrhal 
inflammation, deafness is the resuit. The reader 
may see, therefore, how little likelihood there is 
of any outward application affecting the hearing. 
But these lotions of the quack may, on the con- 
trary, do incalculable harm by hardening or in- 
flaming the drum. 
Ear: External Canker.—A scurfy condition of 
the flap, the edge of which may be sore, ragged, 
and scaly. The flap also becomes thickened. 
Such a thing ought to be seen to in time. 
When the ear is buried in long hair, probably 
matted, have the latter removed with the scissors. 
Perfect cleanliness is the next thing to secure, and 
for this reason have the ear well, though gently, 
washed with warm water and a little mild soap. 
Then apply the ointment mentioned below. It 
may be necessary to touch the sores occasionally 
with blue-stone, or 20-grain solution of nitrate of 
silver. 
The canker-cap must imperatively be worn, and 
in order to give the ears a better chance of heal- 
ing, we may fold them back over the head and 
bind them in that position. 
The strictest regulations as to diet and exercise 
must be enforced, but the animal must be kept 
from the water, and not permitted to overheat 
himself. : 
As to the habit of cropping, adopted by old vets. 
and kennelmen of the present day, I never re- 
commend it, though an old-fashioned Dane er 
Bull Terrier looked smart cropped. 
Abscesses of the flap of the ear are by no means 
uncommon, and cause great pain and irritation. 
Sometimes these are accidental, being caused by 
blows. They often go away of their own accord, 
stimulated only by the use of blue ointment. If 
they do not, they must be opened by a free in- 
cision, for if only pricked the matter will form 
again, while setons do more harm than good. 
The incision, then, must be free, and afterwards 
a little lint is to be inserted, wetted in water, to 
which a few drops of carbolic acid solution have 
been added. The cap may be worn, and the ear 
turned back, and as soon as suppuration is formed, 
the wound will heal if kept perfectly clean and 
softened by the zinc ointment or Zam-Buk. 
Ear: Inflammation of the Flap.—This may be 
merely accidental, as when a long-haired dog gets 
