ON JAUNDICE IN THE DOG. 
379 
' This symptom in the dog; almost always announces the exist- 
ence of very serious disease, as inflammation of the liver or of 
its excretory ducts — or of the gall-bladder — or inflammation of 
the stomach or small intestines — or contraction or obliteration 
of the excretory ducts of the liver in consequence of inflamma- 
tion of these vessels, or the presence of certain concrete sub- 
stances formed from the bile. I have twice opened dogs in 
which I certainly have not been able plainly to detect any of 
these lesions. They had been ill during a long period, and had 
laboured under violent diarrhoea, the fecal discharge being of 
that white colour which characterizes distemper, and some other 
states of intestinal disease. The dogs in which I have found 
the most decided traces of inflammation, had, on the contrary, 
laboured under diarrhoea of a reddish brown or black colour, for 
one, two, or three days. The stomach and intestines always ex- 
hibit symptoms of disease in these cases. 
Although I cannot physically prove that certain dogs, jaun- 
diced, have serious lesions, which cannot possibly be appreciated 
by our usual observation, yet I believe this to be the case ; for 
these dogs do not appear to be in any way ill if they are not 
jaundiced — all the functions seem to be naturally discharged — 
and the jaundice disappears spontaneously in about eight or ten 
days. In these cases I have remarked that the jaundice was 
preceded, and probably caused, by some influence of a moral 
character — the dog had been separated from or had lost its 
master — it had been deprived of its usual liberty, or it had been 
ill-used, or was in the fear of ill-usage. 
The causes, on the contrary, of serious diseases that are accom- 
panied by jaundice, are chiefly over-fatigue (thus greyhounds 
are more subject to it than pointers) — immersions in water — fight- 
ing — vomits or purgatives administered in over-doses — the inges- 
tion of poisonous substances not sufficiently strong at once to de- 
stroy the animal — the ingestion of an enormous quantity of those 
medicaments which are in the hands of every pretender, as 
salt and tobacco — the swallowing of enormous masses of indi- 
gestible food — contusions of the abdominal viscera, especially 
about the region of the liver. Instances of jaundice, referrible to 
one or another of these causes, have often come under my ob- 
servation. The most serious, if not the most common cause, is 
cold after violent and long-continued exercise, and especially 
when the owners of the dogs, seeing their hounds refuse their 
food after a long chase of this kind, give them powerful purga- 
tives or emetics. 
The rational treatment, and which is far from being always 
successful, ought to have strict relation with the real or supposed 
