26 THE DISEASES OV THE DOS. 



CHAPTBE III.— DISEASES OP THE BLOOD. 



The blood of the dog is estimated to amount to one 

 eighteenth the total weight of the body, its red corpuscles 

 are smaller than those of man. The majority of dogs may 

 be considered as of the sanguine temperament, although 

 the nervous temperament predominates in toy terriers and 

 some of the larger breeds are deeidedly lymphatic. 

 These differences materially influence the doses in which 

 medicaments are to be given, and also, to an extent, the 

 remedies to be resorted to in special cases. 



The blood diseases of the dog have always been deemed 

 of much importance, even when but two of them were 

 recognised as such, distemper and rabies ; but latterly 

 the addition of many others, such as anthrax, diphtheria, 

 foot-and-mouth disease, glanders, and relapsing fever, 

 to the list have rendered this branch of canine pathology 

 specially important. The non-specific blood affections 

 have been comparatively little studied, but they are fairly 

 numerous and very important clinically. 



SPECIFIC BLOOD DISOEDEES : Babies.— This 

 formidable disease has a terrible importance from a com- 

 parative pathological point of view, since it annually 

 claims human victims in considerable numbers and induces 

 symptoms which, by their severity and the amount of 

 mental disorder which they comprise, excite the greatest 

 apprehension among the friends and onlookers of the case, 

 together with the greatest pity for the sufferer. Babies 

 has attained a sensational notoriety disproportioned to the 

 actual number of human beings which succumb to it, and 

 which notoriety at times becomes almost morbidly exagge- 

 rated, indeed so much so as to impress excessively nervous, 



