DECAY OF THE DOG’s TEETH. 
751 
It is evident that the concrements should be carefully re¬ 
moved, but it is of equally vital importance that the digestive 
irregularities should be corrected, if possible, otherwise they 
will immediately reappear. 
My prognosis in such cases, as to the retention of the teeth, 
depends almost entirely upon the opinion I can form as to the 
possibility or probability of a resumption of health being in¬ 
duced by corrected diet, exercise and judicious medical treat¬ 
ment, and that there be not from the history every reason to be¬ 
lieve that the alveolar tissues possess the tendency to atrophic 
change, as will be the case if the animal has been fed from per¬ 
haps its youth entirely upon soft foods. 
The treatment is simply to cleanse the teeth most thoroughly 
with dull scraping instruments, as used by human dentists, tak¬ 
ing care to remove the deposit in its entirety, and especially 
where it touches or penetrates below the gingival line. The 
process is tedious and requires great patience and dexterity, but 
can be accomplished satisfactorily in almost all dogs if correctly 
undertaken. Make a complete change in the diet, and if pos¬ 
sible send them into the country to be boarded out, where re¬ 
forms can be more easily practiced, and tone the digestion by 
remedies, as elixir pepsin, bismuth and pancreatin, in suitable 
doses, and secure an abundance of exercise in the open air. 
Cause the gums to be thoroughly swabbed three times weekly 
with an astringent solution, made in the strength of one tea¬ 
spoonful of powdered alum to the pint of water. By these 
methods I have had very good results in arresting the conditions 
which lead up to destructive pyorrhoea alveolaris, or that class 
of aggravated trouble which, as I have already estimated, is 
responsible for perhaps ninety per cent, of the teeth lost by dogs. 
If tartar be allowed to remain and continue its accumulation 
about the teeth, it will increase its volume upward and outward 
from the neck, but there will also be a constant tendency to 
press its formation down more and more firmly upon and into 
the alveolus, and in time there is certain to come dissolution of 
the soft structure of the gingivse and dental ligament, as that 
