ON THE DISTEMPER OF DOGS. 
a twelvemonth has passed and they have not lost a single dog; 
and I, for a while, have lost them ; but in a few years they have 
applied to me in great distress, complaining that the distemper 
was sweeping off the very pride of their kennel, and that they 
could not stay its ravages. We maybe assured that there is and 
can be no specific in a disease like distemper. The circumstance 
most connected with our success will be the recollection that it 
is a disease of the mucous surfaces, and that we must not carry 
the depleting and lowering system too far. Keeping this in view, 
we must accommodate ourselves to the symptoms as they arise. 
The natural medicine of the dog seems to be an emetic. The act 
of vomiting is very easily excited in him, and, feeling the slightest 
ailment, he flies to the dog grass, unloads his stomach, and is, 
at once, well. In distemper, whatever be the form which 
it assumes, an emetic is the first thing to be given. Common 
salt will do when nothing else is at hand ; but the best emetic, 
and particularly in distemper, consists of equal parts of calomel 
and emetic tartar : from half a grain to a grain and a half of 
eacli will constitute the dose. This will act first as an emetic, 
and afterwards as a gentle purgative. Then, if the cough be 
urgent, and there be heaving at the flanks, and the nose be hot, 
a moderate quantity of blood may be taken ;—from three to twelve 
ounces; and this, if there has been previous constipation, may 
be followed by a dose of sulphate of magnesia, from two to six 
drachms. In slight cases this will often be sufficient to effect a 
cure. 
If the dog still droops, and particularly if there be much hus¬ 
kiness, begin to give antimonial or James’s powder, nitre, and 
digitalis, in the proportions of from half to one grain of digitalis, 
from two to five grains of the James’s powder, and from a scruple 
to a drachm of nitre, twice or thrice in a day; except that on the 
third or fourth day, if the huskiness be not quite removed, the 
emetic should be repeated. 
In these affections of the mucous membranes it is absolutely 
necessary to avoid or to get rid of every source of irritation, and 
there will generally be found one, and a very considerable one in 
young dogs, worms*. If we can speedily get rid of them, dis¬ 
temper will often rapidly disappear ; but if they are suffered to 
remain, diarrhoea or fits may supervene: therefore some worm 
medicine should be administered. 
I have said that vomiting is very easily excited in the dog r 
and on that account we are precluded from the use of a great 
* Flic intestines of a puppy which had died of distemper were here 
examined, and found to be almost tilled with worms. 
