LACTSAL TTHOURa. 81 



rei-y unsightly, but when grown to a considerable size, as it will do, 

 it is veiy Uable to iajuiy. 



The immediate cause is the damming up of one of the milk-ducts ; 

 the teat is "blind," as it is called in dairy parlance — that is, the 

 flow of milk through it is obstructed by some malformation. Far 

 oftener, however, the milk itself is the cause ; that is to say, it is not 

 drained off sufficiently, when it hardens, acts as a foreign body, and 

 BtiU further as an irritant, because of its chemical decomposition. 

 The effect of this is that more or less inflammation of the milk-gland 

 is produced, a hard lump forms and increases gradually, and, once 

 begun, the evil develops (more and more at each returning period 

 after cestrum, when pupping has or should have taken place. 



From the numerous questions I have received on the subject, it 

 does not appear to be generally known by those who keep dogs 

 that some bitches, even if they have been secluded from the dog 

 during the period of "heat," will secrete a fluid much resembling 

 milk at the time they would have had pups had impregnation been 

 allowed, but such is the case. It is therefore the duty of the owner 

 to note the time and look out for the evidence of this secretion and 

 have it removed by hand, or by one of the many breast-exhausters, 

 giving at the same time a Ught diet, with an extra proportion of 

 boiled vegetables and a few doses of cooling, aperient medicine. 

 Permitting a bitch when in milk to lie on cold bricks or flags, or 

 to be exposed in other ways to cold and damp, may also cause 

 obstruction of the teat and subsequent tumour ; while blows, 

 bruises, and wounds sometimes produce a like result. A not 

 uncommon cause of these lacteal tumours is the hurried drying 

 up of the milk by artificial means. It is sometimes desirable to 

 destroy pups that are the result of a misalliance, but it is abso- 

 lutely cruel to deprive the poor mother of aU her progeny. In 

 addition to the cruelty, there is always the risk of the flow of milk 

 damming up one or more of the teats and producing tumour. 



The measures of prevention against lacteal tumours will, from 

 the foregoing remarks, have suggested themselves to the reader. 

 Nature has ordained that the bitch should bring forth young at 

 least once in twelve months, and, though she permits us to take 

 certain liberties with her laws, yet if we go beyond a certain Umit, 

 disease follows as a punishment ; even when we interfere with her 

 prerogative, it must not be by direct contradiction, but by diverting 

 her forces into other channels. When we forbid the bitch to breed, 

 we put an embargo on certain functions, and the energy that supplies 

 and works these functions we divert by exciting extra secretions of 

 the* bowels, kidneys, etc. ; but the safest, because the most natural, 

 prevention of disease, is to let the bitch breed. 



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