THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 201 



rently was in perfect health at starting. It soon falls, 

 and its limbs are rigid and quivering or violently convulsed, 

 it foams at the mouth, champs the jaws, and may bite its 

 tongue severely ; its eyes protrude, or the lids are closed 

 and the eyeballs rolling spasmodically, or some strabismus 

 is present. Urine and faeces are expelled involuntarily, and, 

 rarely, sweats moisten the body. The pulse is irregular in 

 the extreme, very fast, and sometimes imperceptible ; the 

 respiration is stertorous. The fit may pass off in a very 

 short time, five minutes to a quarter of an hour, and the 

 animal seem dazed and inclined to run away, or very 

 weak and anxious to sleep. In other cases there is a 

 succession of fits, which may prove fatal. Diagnosis. — 

 These fits are erroneously considered rabies, and many 

 dogs have been destroyed for them accordingly. The 

 popular idea of " mad dogs " foaming at the mouth and 

 falling in fits, also biting anyone touching them during 

 convulsions, and running away, is exactly realised by the 

 phenomena in epilepsy, but, as we have previously seen, the 

 rabid dog does not generally show its disease in this way. 

 A distinction is sometimes drawn between attacks of epi- 

 lepsy as above described and those of Vertigo, in which 

 there are no convulsions but simple syncope, a temporary 

 loss of consciousness, or fainting fit lasting a few minutes 

 and leaving the animal apparently as well as ever, though 

 a little dazed. Vertigo is attributed by Williams to 

 disease of the heart or pericardium, by Hill to tight collars, 

 bronchocele, and stomach disorder. To these must be 

 added liver derangement (especially softening), one of the 

 principal causes of the giddiness in the tropics. Megnin 

 has described an epileptiform disease of dogs which proved 

 to be auricular acariasis and must not be mistaken for true 

 epilepsy. Treatment. — In slight cases of epilepsy, and in 

 vertigo, such simple measures as cold water applications 

 to the head and quietude, also loosening the collar will 

 suffice, but invariably some change should be made in the 

 management of the animal. Mayhew, in his usual curious 

 style, draws attention to some of the rough-and-ready 

 suggestions which are likely to be made to the owner of a 



