ON THE DISEASES OF DOGS. 
697 
or kennel, at once or successively ; and that, when once it has 
appeared in any place where there are many of these animals, it is 
seldom that any one escapes being affected by it. Nay, more ; if, 
some time after the disease has apparently disappeared from a cer- 
tain kennel or locality, one or more fresh young dogs are brought 
there, they are inevitably attacked by it, whatever precautions 
may have been taken to cleanse the place : it is ordinarily about 
the second or third day after their arrival that they fall ili. We 
cannot help thinking that these believers in contagion exaggerate a 
little, for the disease cannot resist the agency of those disinfectant 
matters which are efficacious under all other circumstances. In 181 5 
we made the following experiment : — By means of fumigations 
of chlorine, accompanied by all proper precautions, we purified 
several stables that had for some time been inhabited by cattle 
affected with a contagious epizootic which then prevailed, and sub- 
sequently brought other cattle there, who, as we anticipated, con- 
tinued quite healthy. Why, then, should it be otherwise with 
regard to la maladie in dogs 1 Why should not a disinfectant 
agent be as powerful in one case as in the other ] On one point 
all are agreed ; viz., that an animal that has once had this disease 
does not contract it a second time, even though surrounded by all 
the accessory circumstances which usually tend to develope it. 
An English author, however, Delabere Blaine, is an exception to 
this ; for he says that he has seen it once, twice, and even three 
times in the same individual. 
This affection cannot be said to be peculiar to the dog : it may 
rather be regarded as common to all carnivora ; for it has been 
seen in the cat, the wolf, and the fox, and has been known to be 
communicated from a wolf to some young dogs. 
On the Nature of La Maladie in Dogs . — This is, and has been, 
very much a matter of dispute, the symptoms which accompany 
the disease are so varied, and the accidental circumstances so nu- 
merous, even when its commencement is not always alike. By far 
the greater part of the authors who have treated of it regard it as 
a catarrhal affection; M. Huzard, jun., however, ranks it among 
nervous diseases. M. Delaguette, who has treated a great number 
of maladie dogs, avoids deciding on the question altogether; never- 
theless, he seems inclined to view this disease as a general inflam- 
mation of the mucous membranes, complicated, in most cases, with 
nervous affections. He says that we need not be astonished at the 
sympathy which the nervous system acquires with this disease, 
since it generally affects young dogs during the period of dentition, 
and of their most active growth. 
Symptoms . — In order to be enabled to establish the veritable 
characteristics, of nasal catarrh in dogs, it appears to us necessary, 
VOL. XVII. 4 z 
