ABC GUIDE TO CANINE AILMENTS. 
Ulcers.— Wherever situated, must be treated on 
general principles. Locally an antiseptic lotion 
or, if very foul, a touch of blue-stone or lunar 
caustic. Poultice if swelling around it, followed 
by dressing of zinc ointment, perfect cleanliness, 
and good strengthening diet, with or without 
arsenic and iron. 
Urinary Organs,—Any ailment of these regions, 
either in dog or in bitch, should be seen to and 
treated by a skilled vet. His rules and directions, 
I need hardly say, must be strictly followed out. 
Sometimes painful tumours form about these 
parts, and if they are left to themselves they 
rapidly get worse. A stitch in time saves nine 
and may save a life. 
Worms or Internal Parasites——In other and 
larger treatises on the ailments of dogs I have 
gone fully into their helminthology. This would 
serve no useful purpose here, but the life-story of 
even a tape-worm is exceedingly interesting and 
marvellous. 
We have, roughly speaking, two kinds of worms 
to treat in the dog: (1) the round, and (2) the 
tape. 
(1) Round-worms.—They are in shape and size 
not unlike the garden worm, but harder, pale, 
and pointed. 
Symptoms.—Sometimes these are alarming, for 
the worm itself is occasionally seized with the 
mania for foreign travel, and finds its way into 
the throat or nostrils, causing the dog to become 
perfectly furious, and inducing such pain and 
agony that it may seem charity to end its life. 
The worms may also crawl into the stomach, and 
give rise to great irritation, but are usually dis- 
lodged therefrom by the violence accompanying 
the act of vomiting. 
Their usual habitat, however, is the small in- 
testines, where they occasion great distress to their 
host. The appetite is always depraved and 
voracious. At times there is colic, with sickness 
and perhaps vomiting, and the bowels are alter- 
nately constipated or loose. The coat is harsh and 
staring, there usually is short, dry cough from 
reflex irritation of the bronchial mucous mem- 
brane, a bad-smelling breath, and emaciation or 
at least considerable poverty of flesh. 
The disease is most common in puppies and 
in young dogs. The appearance of the ascaris in 
the dog’s stools is, of course, the diagnostic 
symptom. 
Treatment.—I have cured many cases with san- 
tonin and areca-nut powder (betel-nut), dose 
10 grains to 2 drachms; or turpentine, dose from 
10 drops to 1% drachms, beaten up with yolk of 
egg. 
But areca-nut does better for tape-worm, so we 
cannot do better than trust to pure santonin. The 
dose is from 1 grain for a Toy up to 6 grains for 
a Mastiff. Mix it with a little butter, and stick 
it well back in the roof of the dog’s mouth. He 
must have fasted previously for twelve hours, and 
had a dose of castor-oil the day before. In four 
or five hours after he has swallowed the santonin, 
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let him have a dose of either olive-oil or decoction 
of aloes. Dose, 2 drachms to 2 ounces or more. 
Repeat the treatment in five days. Spratts’ cure 
may be safely depended on for worms.* 
The perfect cleanliness of the kennel is of para- 
mount importance. 
The animal’s general health requires looking 
after, and he may be brought once more into good 
condition by proper food and a course of vegetable 
tonics. If wanted in show condition we have 
Plasmon to fall back upon, and Burroughs and 
Wellcome’s extract of malt. 
There is a round-worm which at times infests 
the dog’s bladder, and may cause occlusion of the 
urethra; a whip-worm inhabiting the cecum; 
another may occupy a position in the mucous 
membrane of the stomach; some infest the blood, 
and others the eye. 
(2) Tape-worms.—There are several kinds, but 
the treatment is the same in all cases. The com- 
monest in the country is the Cucumerine. 
This is a tape-worm of about fifteen inches in 
average length, although I have taken them from 
Newfoundland pups fully thirty inches long. It is 
a semi-transparent entozoon; each segment is long 
compared to its breadth, and narrowed at both 
ends. Each joint has, when detached, an inde- 
pendent sexual existence. 
The dog often becomes infested with this para- 
site from eating sheeps’ brains, and dogs thus 
afflicted and allowed to roam at pleasure over 
fields and hills where sheep are fed sow the seeds 
of gid in our flocks to any extent. We know too 
well the great use of Collie dogs to the shepherd 
or grazier to advise that dogs should not be 
employed as assistants, but surely it would be 
to their owners’ advantage to see that they were 
kept in a state of health and cleanliness. 
Treatment.—We ought to endeavour to prevent 
as well as to cure. We should never allow our 
dogs to eat the entrails of hares or rabbits. 
Never allow them to be fed on raw sheep’s in- 
testines, nor the brains of sheep. Never permit 
them to lounge around butchers’ shops, nor eat 
offal of any kind. Let their food be well cooked, 
and their skins and kennels kept scrupulously 
clean. Dogs that are used for sheep and cattle 
ought, twice a year at least, to go under treatment 
for the expulsion of worms, whether they are in- 
fested or not; an anthelmintic would make sure, 
and could hardly hurt them. 
For the expulsion of tape-worms we depend 
mostly on areca-nut. In order that the tape-worm 
should receive the full benefit of the remedy, 
we order a dose of castor-oil the day before in 
the morning, and recommend no food to be given 
that day except beef-tea or mutton broth. The 
bowels are thus empty next morning, so that the 
parasite cannot shelter itself anywhere, and is 
therefore sure to be acted on by the drug. 
Infusion of cusco is sometimes used as an 
* Many dog owners swear by the preparation called Ruby, 
which can be recommended as a cure for worms.—Ep, 
