INTRODUCTION. 11 



In canine almost as much as in human practice must 

 allowance be made for nervous influences. To those 

 accustomed to handle only our domesticated herbivora 

 under disease it will be somewhat difficult to recognise 

 that sometimes in canine patients the nervous irritability 

 constitutes the most serious feature of the attack. Chloral, 

 opium, and ether are recognised as assuming a high place 

 in the catalogue of dog medicines, and such nerve tonics 

 as nitrate of silver and strychnia, also coffee and tea, are 

 useful in the hands of the skilful canine physician. It is 

 to ladies' pets, drawing-, and bed-room dogs, in fact, that 

 these remarks especially apply — they are extremely tender 

 under disease and suffer from intense mental feeling, and 

 are particularly liable to chorea, fits, paralysis, and other 

 nervous phenomena. It has been remarked, too, that in 

 them delirium usually precedes death. Among such animals 

 we sometimes find " malingerers " ; strange as it may 

 seem, it is an indubitable fact, amply established by expe- 

 rience, that many dogs at times feign sickness deliberately, 

 perhaps with somewhat the same instinct as leads the fox, 

 when hard pressed, to " sham " death. Again, it is such 

 artificially bred and reared animals which, like spoilt 

 children, require the greatest tact and gentleness with 

 firmness on the part of the physician or surgeon in handling 

 them for various purposes. They are apt to prove refrac- 

 tory, especially in the presence of their fair owners, who 

 are too apt to support them in their mutiny against medical 

 authority. There are a number of small details as to the 

 handling of strange and refractory dogs which are to be 

 learned in the school of experience. We must here insist 

 that boldness is essential, freedom from roughness and 

 the infliction of unnecessary pain must be adopted, and 

 seclusion during the examination of the patient. The 

 nervousness of dogs renders attention to the details of 

 nursing very essential in canine practice. Fortunately, as 

 a rule dogs have kind friends and caretakers, who will 

 willingly do what they can to lessen the pain and discom- 

 fort of sickness, and are only apt to err on the side of 

 f ' doing too much." 



