64 THE DISEASES OP THE DOG. 



Strict hygiene, tonics (such as cod-liver oil and iron iodide), 

 good food, warm bed, and, especially, carefully arranged, 

 easily digestible diet, may keep the patient alive for some 

 time, but as he is quite unfit to breed from and will require 

 constantly the most careful attention, it is generally better to 

 destroy a pup thus affected. Messrs. Growing have recorded 

 a case in the 'Veterinarian' for 1868 in which the liver was 

 dark in colour and speckled here and there with yellow 

 granules. These were so numerous as to render the gland 

 almost globular in shape, compact in texture, and of the con- 

 sistency of an ordinary fatty tumour ; its section was gran- 

 ular and mottled with minute, yellow specks. The heart 

 was fatty ; a fellow pup died of the same disease, marasmus, 

 with distended abdomen due to tuberculous deposit. 



Septicemia. — It is a remarkable fact that although it 

 is, to an extent, natural for dogs to feed on putrid mate- 

 rial, yet when decomposing matter enters a wound fever 

 of a typhoid character, followed by collapse and speedy 

 death, occurs ; or occasionally the animal recovers after 

 profuse diarrhoea with most offensive evacuations. This 

 accident is especially liable to occur in bitches in which 

 laceration of the lining membrane of the genitals has 

 occurred and the foetus is in a decomposed state. The 

 fever sets in some eighteen or twenty hours after inocu- 

 lation. After death the tissues in general are found 

 oedematous and spotted, and it will be observed that they 

 undergo speedy decomposition. Treatment comprises 

 stimulant tonics internally and the use of antiseptic and 

 disinfectant lotions in frequent washing out of the diseased 

 parts. The disease in relation to parturition is carefully 

 described in Fleming's ' Veterinary Obstetrics.' 



NON-SPECIFIC DISORDERS OF THE BLOOD. 



Rheumatism is somewhat frequently seen in dogs, espe- 

 cially those used for sporting purposes, and generally due to 

 the neglect of an old sporting rule to " lie warm and dry." 

 Thus it is seen most often in damp kennels, with a cold, 



