490 MR. youatt’s veterinary lectures. 
of that general mucous inflammation soon passes over, and is 
succeeded by a debility, from the depressing influence of which 
I cannot rouse my patient. Do the fits proceed from dentition ? 
I lance the jaws, and give an emetic, and follow it up with cool¬ 
ing purgative medicine. Do they arise from worms ? I endea¬ 
vour to expel them. From irregular and excessive exercise ? I 
open the bowels, and make my exercise more regular and equa¬ 
ble. From excitation ? I expose my patient more cautiously to 
the influence of those things which make so much impression on 
his little but susceptible mind. 
Treatment continued, —Should I never bleed? Yes; if the fit 
had resisted other means. A fit in other animals is generally 
connected with dangerous determination of blood to the head, 
and bleeding is imperative ; a fit in the dog may be the conse¬ 
quence of sudden surprise and irritation. If I had the means, I 
should first of all do that which I have deprecated as it regarded 
the poor sheep; I should see whether I could not suddenly break 
the charm—whether I could not get rid of one disturbance by 
suddenly affecting the nervous system, and the system generally, 
in another way. I would not throw the dog into the water, 
and half drown him ; nor empty bucket after bucket of water 
upon him; but I would seize him by the nape of the neck, 
and dash a little cold water, and with all my force, plump in his 
face. How often has the shock of this dispersed the epileptic 
agency as it were by magic? I would give an emeto-purgative 
(a grain or a grain and a half of calomel and the same quantity 
of emetic tartar); I would soothe and coax the poor animal. 
Then—and if I saw it at the beginning, I would do it early—if 
the fit was more dependent upon, or was beginning to be con¬ 
nected with determination of blood to the head, and not on 
any temporary cause of excitation or irritation, I w’ould bleed 
freely from the jugular. But we travelled a good deal over this 
ground when treating of distemper and apoplexy; and, besides, 
our usual time is nearly expired, and I can recur only to one 
other species of epilepsy connected with the rearing of the 
puppy. 
Puerperal Fits. —Nature proportions the power and resources 
of the mother to the wants of her offspring, and in her w ild 
undomesticated state the bitch is able to suckle her progeny to 
the full time; but in the artificial state in which w^e have placed 
her, we shorten the interval between each period of parturition— 
we increase the number of her young ones at each birth—we 
diminish her natural powers of affording them nutriment—and 
we give her a degree of irritability-wdiich renders her whole sys¬ 
tem liable to be excited and deranged by causes that would 
otherwise be harmless : therefore it happens that, w'hen the pet- 
