EPILEPSY IN DOGS. 489 
and suffered to range as he likes, the accumulation of excitabi¬ 
lity is expended in a fit. 
The Causes of Fits in Dogs .—How is this? These causes do 
not produce similar disturbances in other animals. The dog is, 
par excellence, our intellectual patient. In proportion to his bulk 
the weight of his brain far exceeds that of any other quadruped, 
the very smallest animals alone being excepted, in whom there 
must be a certain accumulation of medullary matter in order to 
give origins to nerves of every system as numerous in the 
minutest quadruped as in him of greatest bulk. The dog is, 
without exception, the most intellectual animal: he is the com¬ 
panion and the friend of man \ he exhibits and is debased by 
some of his vices; but, to a greater degree than many will allow, 
he exhibits also the intelligence and the virtues of the biped. 
Has it been said of the human being, that great power and ex¬ 
ertion of the mental faculties are sometimes connected with a 
tendency to epilepsy? Were Csesar, and Mahomet, and Napo¬ 
leon, epileptic? Have violent emotions of joy or of grief been 
closely followed by epilepsy? Then I can readily account for 
the young dog—I never saw it in the horse or in cattle—being 
frightened into a fit at the chiding of his master, or the dread of 
a punishment which he was conscious that he had deserved; then, 
too, I can understand that, when, breaking loose from long con¬ 
finement he ranges in all the exuberance of joy, and especially 
when he flushes almost his first covey, and the game falls dead 
before him, his mental powers are quite overcome, and befalls in 
an epileptic fit. Thfe very yielding, the temporary breaking down 
of the intellectual power, is a sufficient proof of the extent to 
which it exists. 
Treatment .—The treatment of epilepsy in the dog is simple, 
yet often misunderstood. Is it connected with distemper in its 
early stage? It is the produce of inflammation of the mucous 
passages generally; and an emeto-purgative will, probably, by its 
direct medicinal effect, relieve the digestive passages from some 
source of irritation, and by its mechanical action unburthen the 
respiratory ones. Is it connected with the after stages of this 
disease?—is it symptomatic of an asthenic state of the constitu¬ 
tion ?—the emeto-purgative must be succeeded by an anodyne at 
least, and then, by that which will strengthen but not irritate the 
patient. A seton is an admirable auxiliary in epilepsy connected 
with distemper; it is a counter-irritant—it is a derivative—it ef¬ 
fects a salutary discharge, under the influence of which inflam¬ 
mation elsewhere will gradually abate. I should be, however, 
cautious of bleeding in distemper fits. 1 should be fearful of it 
even in an early stage, because 1 well know that the acute form 
VOL. VIII. 8 X 
