ON T1IE DISEASES OF DOGS. 
19 
them, or favour their development. We shall presently see that 
the seat is most likely to be in the centre of the nervous system, 
which may have been injured, and suffering from some slight ir- 
ritation, but yet sufficient to induce the mixture of convulsive and 
paralytic symptoms of which we have been speaking. If there is 
no appreciable irritation, there is undoubtedly a lesion of some 
of the functions ; and it must be borne in mind, that this centre of 
the nervous system regulates the action of all the organs, and is 
closely united with the brain, and that is not unlikely to have its 
share in the production of chorea, since the animal, from being 
apparently healthy, suddenly loses his visual faculties, his sense 
of smell, and becomes in a manner stupefied. The brain, however, 
is not the only nervous centre : many pairs of nerves arise from the 
spinal marrow, and a pathological state of the prolongation of the 
spinal cord might also be likely to induce chorea. 
Coryza in dogs is occasionally found complicated with bronchi- 
tis, and even with pneumonia. In these cases the respiration is 
quick ; the flanks heave violently when the cough is not accompa- 
nied with expectoration, and the animal frequently dies on the 
third or fifth day. In some animals this disease has been found 
accompanied with, or followed by, pustular eruptions, which some 
have deemed analogous with those of the small-pox; also with 
abscesses, especially on one thigh, and a species of itch or mange. 
Dogs that have been thought to have got safely through this dis- 
order frequently retain various traces of it. Some are blind of 
one eye, others totally ; some, although not more than two or three 
years old, have all the appearance of aged dogs ; their eyes are so 
sunken, their gait so stiffened, and their whole appearance is 
altered. Others, again, as we have before stated, are subject to 
fits for a long while, if not throughout the rest of their lives. 
Duration . — The ordinary duration of nasal catarrh in the dog 
is from fifteen to forty days. Sometimes it runs its course in from 
twenty-five to thirty days, and at other times it lasts several 
months. The animals which suffer from fits are often carried off 
very suddenly ; while those in whom the disease is complicated 
with ophthalmia live much longer. They languish and waste 
gradually away, or remain paralysed or affected with the St. Vitus’s 
dance. At least half the animals attacked with this disease die 
suddenly sooner or later. 
Prognostic . — Where the disease is simple, nature often triumphs 
over it ; and this is peculiarly the case in the country, where it 
always appears under a milder form than it assumes in towns, 
kennels, or packs of hounds. In the latter case it is almost inva- 
riably complicated, insidious, and fatal. Its most fatal complica- 
tion is with the cerebral affections, when it presents symptoms 
