The Dog

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[We once cured a case quite accidentally, by throwing a pup into a cold
stream of water, and making him swim ashore; we do not recommend the
plan, although we should be willing to try it again with one of our own
dogs. The animal should be forced to swim till nearly exhausted, and
wrapped up in blankets on coming out of the water. The intense alarm
created in the pup, together with the violent struggle and coldness of
the water, all act as revulsives to the disease, which, if purely
nervous, may be overcome by these powerful agents.

If the dog be weak, and the stomach deranged, the following tonic balls
will answer a good purpose:

[Symbol: Rx]: Carbonate of Iron.

Ground Ginger, aa, grs. X, made into two pills, one given morning and
evening, or more frequently according to the age or size of the
animal.--L.]

RHEUMATISM AND PALSY.

I do not know any animal so subject to 'rheumatism' as the dog, nor any
one in which, if it is early and properly treated, it is so manageable.

[We agree with our author, that the canine family are exceedingly liable
to inflammation of the fibrous and muscular structures of the body, and
there is no disease from which they suffer more, both in their youth and
old age, than rheumatism. No particular species of dogs are more subject
to its attacks than others, all being alike victims to its ravages. Mr.
Blaine remarks, that the bowels always sympathize with other parts of
the body suffering under this disease, and that inflammation will always
be found existing in the abdominal viscera, if rheumatism be present,
and the lower bowels will be attended with a painful torpor, which he
designates as rheumatic colic. We ourselves noticed, that old setters
particularly, when suffering from this disease, are frequently attacked
with an acute diarrhoea, or suffer from obstinate constipation attended
by griping pains, but did not know that this state of things was so
uniform an accompaniment to the other affection. There are two varieties
of rheumatism, the 'acute' and 'chronic', both of which are attended
with either general fever or local inflammation. The attacks usually
come on rather suddenly, the joints swell, the pulse becomes full and
tense, the parts tender, and the eyes blood-shot, the stomach deranged,
and the bowels costive. Severe lancinating pain runs through the
articulation, and along the course of the larger muscles, the tongue is
coated, the muzzle hot and dry, and the poor animal howls with agony.
The breathing becomes laboured, all food is rejected, and if you attempt
to move the sufferer he sends forth piteous cries of distress. 'The
causes' of this serious affection are very numerous; among the most
usual and active agents may be enumerated, exposure to atmospherical
vicissitudes, remaining wet and idle after coming from the water, damp
kennels, suppressed perspiration, metastasis of eruptive diseases,
luxurious living, laziness and over-feeding. These and many other causes
are all busy in the production of this disease. Duck dogs on the
Chesapeake, we have noticed as often suffering from this affection,
owing no doubt to the great exposure they are obliged to endure; but few
of them arrive at old age without being martyrs to the chronic form.
'Chronic rheumatism', generally the result of the other form of disease,
is most usually met with in old dogs: it is attended with little fever,
although the local inflammation and swelling is sometimes considerable.
The pain is often stationary in one shoulder or loin, at other times
shifts about suddenly to other portions of the body. The muscles are
tender and the joints stiff, the animal seems lame till he becomes
healed, and limber when all appearance of the disease vanishes. In old
cases the limbs become so much enlarged, and the joints so swollen, that
the dog is rendered perfectly useless, and consequently increases his
sufferings by idleness. 'This form of the disease is known as gout.'

Treatment of 'acute rheumatism'--bleeding largely is very important in
this affection, and if followed up with two or three purges of aloes,
gamboge, colocynth and calomel will arrest the progress of this disease.

Rx. Extract of Colocynth 3 [Symbol: scruple] i.
Calomel grs. x.
Powdered Gamboge grs. ii.
Socet. Aloes grs. x.

Made into four pills, two to be given at night, and the other the
following morning. If these medicines should not be handy, give a large
purging ball of aloes, to be followed by a full dose of salts. When the
inflammatory action is not sufficiently high to demand depletion, warm
bathing, friction and keeping the dog wrapped up in blankets before a
fire will generally afford relief. If the pain appear very severe, it
will be necessary to repeat the baths at short intervals: great
attention must be paid to the state of the bowels: if a diarrhoea
supervenes, it must not he checked too suddenly, by the use of
astringent medicines, but rather corrected by small doses of oil and
magnesia. If constipation attended with colic be the character of the
affection, small quantities of oil and turpentine in connexion with warm
enemata will be the proper remedies. If paralysis should occur, it will
be found very difficult to overcome, but must be treated, after the
reduction of inflammation, upon principles laid down under the head of
this latter affection. Blisters to the spine, setons, electricity,
acupuncturation, &c.

'Treatment of chronic rheumatism'--warm baths are useful, and warm
housing absolutely necessary, attention to diet, and an occasional purge
of blue mass and aloes, together with electricity, acupuncture,
rubefacient applications to the spine, &c.--L.]

A warm bath--perchance a bleeding--a dose or two of the castor-oil
mixture, and an embrocation composed of spirit of turpentine, hartshorn,
camphorated spirit, and laudanum, will usually remove it in two or three
days, unless it is complicated with muscular sprains, or other lesions,
such as the 'chest-founder' of kennels.

This chest-founder is a singular complaint, and often a pest in kennels
that are built in low situations, and where bad management prevails.
Where the huntsman or whippers-in are too often in a hurry to get home,
and turn their dogs into the kennel panting and hot; where the beds are
not far enough from the floor, or the building, if it should be in a
sufficiently elevated situation, has yet a northern aspect and is
unsheltered from the blast, chest-founder prevails; and I have known
half the pack affected by it after a severe run, the scent breast-high,
and the morning unusually cold. It even occasionally passes on into
palsy.

The veterinary surgeon will be sometimes consulted respecting this
provoking muscular affection. His advice will comprise--dryness,
attention to the bowels, attention to the exercise-ground, and perhaps,
occasionally, setons--not where the huntsman generally places them, on
the withers above, but on the brisket below, and defended from the teeth
of the dog by a roller of a very simple construction, passing round the
chest between the fore legs and over the front of the shoulders on
either side.

The pointer, somewhat too heavy before, and hardly worked, becomes what
is called chest-foundered. From his very make it is evident that, in
long-continued and considerable exertion, the subscapular muscles will
be liable to sprain and inflammation. There will be inflammation of the
fasciae, induration, loss of power, loss of nervous influence and palsy.
Cattle, driven far and fast to the market, suffer from the same causes.

[By palsy, we mean a partial or complete loss of the powers of motion or
sensation in some portion of the muscular system: this affection is very
common to the canine race, and very few of them reach an advanced age
without having at some time in their life experienced an attack of this
malady.

The loins and hind legs suffer oftener than other parts, in fact we do
not recollect ever meeting with paralysis of the fore limbs alone.
Although the limbs become perfectly powerless, and are only dragged
after the animal by the combined efforts of the fore legs and back, it
is seldom that they lose their sensibility.--L.]

Palsy is frequent, as in the dog. However easy it may be to subdue a
rheumatic affection, in its early stage, by prompt attention, yet if it
is neglected, it very soon simulates, or becomes essentially connected
with, or converted into, palsy.

No animal presents a more striking illustration of the connexion between
intestinal irritation and palsy than the dog. He rarely or never has
enteritis, even in its mildest form, without some loss of power over the
hinder extremities. This may at first arise from the participation of
the lumbar muscles with the intestinal irritation; but, if the disease
of the bowels continues long, it will be evident enough that it is not
pain alone that produces the constrained and incomplete action of the
muscles of the hind extremities, but that there is an actual loss of
nervous power. A dog is often brought to the veterinary surgeon, with no
apparent disease about him except a staggering walk from weakness of the
hind limbs. He eats well and is cheerful, and his muzzle is moist and
cool; but his belly is tucked up, and there are two longitudinal cords,
running parallel to each other, which will scarcely yield to pressure.
The surgeon orders the castor-oil mixture twice or thrice daily, until
the bowels are well acted upon, and, as soon as that is accomplished,
the dog is as strong and as well as ever. Perhaps his hind limbs are
dragged behind him; a warm bath is ordered, he is dosed well with the
castor-oil mixture, and, if it is a recent case, the animal is well in a
few days. In more confirmed palsy, the charge, or plaster on the loins,
is added to the action of the aperient on the bowels. The process may be
somewhat slow, but it is seldom that the dog does not ultimately and
perfectly recover.

It is easy to explain this connexion, although we should have scarcely
supposed that it would have been so intimate, had not frequent
experience forced it on our observation. The rectum passes through the
pelvis. Whatever may be said of that intestine, considering its vertical
position in the human being, it is always charged with faeces in the
quadruped. It therefore shares more in the effect, whatever that may be,
which is produced by the retention of faeces in the intestinal canal, and
it shares also in the inflammatory affection of other parts of the
canal. Almost in contact with this viscus, or at least passing through
the pelvis, are the crural nerves from the lumbar vertebrae, the
obtusator running round the rim of the pelvis, the glutal nerve
occupying its back, and the sciatic hastening to escape from it. It is
not difficult to imagine that these, to a certain degree, will
sympathize with the healthy and also the morbid state of the rectum; and
that, when it is inert, or asleep, or diseased, they also may be
powerless too. Here is something like fact to establish a very important
theory, and which should be deeply considered by the sportsman and the
surgeon.

[Loss of the contractile power of the sphincters of the bladder and
rectum, sometimes attends this disease, and involuntary evacuations are
constantly taking place, or costiveness and retention are the
consequences.--L.]

Mr. Dupuy has given a valuable account of the knowledge we possess of
the diseases of the spinal marrow in our domestic quadrupeds.

He has proved:

1. That in our domestic animals the spinal marrow is scarcely ever
affected through the whole of its course.

2. That the dorsal and lumbar regions are the parts oftenest affected.

3. That inflammation of the spinal marrow of these regions always
produces palsy, more or less complete, of the abdominal members.

4. That, in some cases, this inflammation is limited to the inferior or
superior parts of the spinal marrow, and that there is loss only of
feeling or of motion.

5. That sometimes animals die of palsy without any organic lesion.

[Blows on the head, producing effusion on the brain, poisoning by lead,
inflammation of the spinal marrow, affections of the nerves, caries of
the spine, costiveness and affections of the bowels, are all productive
of palsy. If the disease proceeds from rheumatism, or other inflammatory
affections, independent of any organic lesion, the disease, if taken
early, is not difficult to overcome in the young subject. Warm baths,
bleeding, purging, and stimulating applications to the parts and along
the spine, will answer. Castor oil and turpentine is a good purge: where
the malady depends upon costiveness, purges of aloes should be
administered in connexion with warm enemata, stimulating frictions along
the spine, and hot baths. Croton oil dropped on the tongue will also be
of great benefit: if there should be effusion or compression from
fracture of the bones of the cranium, nothing but trephining will be of
any service, as we can hardly hope for the absorption of the matter, and
the removal of the spicula of bone can alone afford relief to the
patient. Paralysis arising from poisoning should be treated as described
under the head of mineral poisons. Chronic cases of paralysis arising
from want of tone of the nerves and spinal marrow, repeated blistering,
introduction of the seton along the spine, electricity, &c., have all
been tried with some success.

Strychnia, from its peculiar effects upon the animal economy, and its
almost exclusive direction to the nerves of motion, makes it a medicine
particularly applicable to the treatment of this disease. It may be
given in all stages of the malady, but is most serviceable after the
reduction of inflammatory action, and when we are convinced that the
disease depends upon want of tone in the motor muscles.

Great care should be had in its administration, as it is a powerful
poison in too large doses, to a large dog; commence with a quarter of a
grain in pill, three times daily, and gradually increase to a half grain
or more if the animal seems to bear it well. But it should be
discontinued immediately on the appearance of any constitutional
symptoms, such as spasmodic twitchings of the eyelids or muzzle.--L.]

PALSY--MANGE

11th February, 1835.--A Persian bitch, at the Zoological Gardens, who
was well yesterday, now staggers as she walks, and has nearly lost the
use of her hind legs. Gave a good dose of the castor-oil mixture.

18th. She is materially worse and drags her hind legs after her. I would
fain put on a charge, but the keeper does not like that her beautiful
coat should be spoiled, and wishes to try what gentle exercise will do.
She certainly, after she has been coaxed a great deal, will get on her
legs and stagger on fifty yards or more. Gave the castor-oil mixture
daily.

19th. She is a little stronger, and walks a little better. Continue the
mixture. Embrocate well with the rheumatic mixture--sp. tereb., sp.
camph., liq. ammon., et tinct. opii--and give gentle exercise.

2d March.--She does improve, although slowly; the charge is therefore
postponed. Continue treatment.

30th. She is considerably better. Continue the mixture, and use the
embrocation every second day.

10th April--She has mange in the bend of her arm, and on her chest. Use
the sulphur ointment and alterative balls, and omit the embrocation and
mixture. In less than a week she nearly recovered from her lameness, and
ran about almost as well as ever.

30th. She runs about very fairly, but the mange has assumed that
character of scurvy which I do not know how to grapple with. Continue
the alterative balls, and the ointment.

18th May.--The mange has disappeared, but the palsy is returning; she
staggers slightly, and droops behind. Give the castor-oil mixture and
use the embrocation.

14th June.--Mange quite gone, but palsy continues to a very considerable
degree. I want to use the plaster; but the keeper pleads for a little
delay. Continue the treatment.

1st July.--I have at length determined to have recourse to the charge. A
piece of thick sheep's leather was fitted lo her loins and haunches.
18th. She appears to be improving, but it is very slowly.

31st. Very little change. The plaster keeps on well: she has no power
over her hind limbs; but she eats and drinks as well as ever.

23d August.--No change. Give her half a grain of strychnia, morning and
night.

26th That singular secretion of milk, to which the bitch is subject nine
weeks after oestrum, is now appearing. Her mammae are enlarged, and I
can squeeze a considerable quantity of milk out of the teats. Give an
aloetic pill, and continue the strychnia.

31st. The secretion of milk continues. There is slight enlargement and
some heat of the mammae; but she feeds as well as ever. Increase the
dose of strychnia to three-quarters of a grain.

On the following day she was found dead. In making the usual
longitudinal incision through the integuments of the abdomen a
considerable quantity of milky fluid, mingled with blood, followed the
knife. There was very slight enlargement of the teats, but intense
inflammation of the whole of the mammary substance. The omentum, and
particularly the portion opposite to the external disease, was also
inflamed. Besides this there was not a vestige of disease.

This is an interesting case and deserves record. I fear that justice was
not done to the animal at the commencement of the paralytic affection.
In nineteen cases out of twenty in the dog, the constant but mild
stimulus of a charge over the lumbar and sacral regions removes the
deeper-seated inflammation of the spinal cord or its membranes, when the
palsy is confined to the hind extremities, and has not been sufficiently
long established to produce serious change of structure. The charge
should have been applied at first. The almost total disappearance of the
palsy during the cutaneous disease, which was attended with more than
usual inflammation of the integument, is an instructive illustration of
the power of counter-irritation, and of what might possibly have been
effected in the first case; for much time was lost before the
application of the charge, and when at length it was applied, it and the
strychnia were powerless.

I consider the following case as exceedingly valuable, at least with
reference to the power of strychnia in removing palsy:--

19th August, 1836.--A fine Alpine dog was suddenly attacked with a
strange nervous affection. He was continually staggering about and
falling. His head was forcibly bent backward and a little on one side,
almost to his shoulder. A pound of blood was abstracted, a seton
inserted from ear to ear, and eight grains of calomel administered.

21st. He has perfectly lost the use of every limb. He has also
amaurosis. perfect blindness, which had not appeared the day before. He
hears perfectly, and he eats, and with appetite, when the food is put
into his mouth. Gave him two large spoonfuls of the castor-oil mixture
daily; this consists of three parts of castor-oil, two of syrup of
buck-thorn, and one of syrup of white poppies.

23d. A little better; can lift his head and throw it upon his side, and
will still eat when fed. Continue the mixture, and give half a grain of
strychnia daily.

24th. Little change.

27th. No change, except that he is rapidly losing flesh. Continue the
treatment.

31th. The strychnia increased to three-fourths of a grain morning and
night. The castor-oil mixture continued in its full quantity. He was
fed well, but there was a sunken, vacant expression of countenance.

2d September.--He can move his head a little, and has some slight motion
in his limbs.

4th. He can almost get up. He recognises me for the first time. His
appetite, which was never much impaired, has returned: this is to be
attributed to strychnia, or the seton, or the daily aperient mixture.
They have all, perhaps, been serviceable, but I attribute most to the
strychnia; for I have rarely, indeed, seen any dog recover from such an
attack. Continue the treatment.

6th. Fast recovering. Medicine as before.

14th. Improving, but not so fast as before. Still continue the
treatment.

28th. Going on slowly, but satisfactorily. Remove the seton, but
continue the other treatment.

13th October.--Quite well.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VII.

RABIES.

We are now arrived at one of the most important subjects in veterinary
pathology. In other cases the comfort and the existence of our quadruped
patients are alone or chiefly involved, but here the lives of our
employers, and our own too, are at stake, and may be easily, and too
often are, compromised. Here also, however other portions of the chain
may be overlooked or denied, we have the link which most of all connects
the veterinary surgeon with the practitioner of human medicine; or,
rather, here is the circumscribed but valued spot where the veterinary
surgeon has the vantage-ground.

In describing the nature, and cause and treatment of rabies, it will be
most natural to take the animal in which it oftenest appears, by which
it is most frequently propagated; the time at which the danger
commences, and the usual period before the death of the patient.

Some years ago a dog, naturally ferocious, bit a child at Lisson Grove.
The child, to all appearance previously well, died on the third day, and
an inquest was to be held on the body in the evening. The Coroner
ordered the dog to be sent to me for examination The animal was,
contrary to his usual habit, perfectly tractable. This will appear to be
of some importance hereafter. I examined him carefully. No suspicious
circumstance could be found about him. There was no appearance of
rabies. In the mean time the inquest took place, and the corpse of the
child was carefully examined. One medical gentleman thought that there
were some suspicious appearances about the stomach, and another believed
that there was congestion of the brain.

The owner of the dog begged that the animal might not be taken from him,
but might accompany him home. He took him home and destroyed him that no
experiments might be made.

With great difficulty we procured the carcass, and from some
inflammatory appearances about the tongue and the stomach, and the
presence of a small portion of indigestible matter in the stomach, we
were unanimously of opinion that the dog was rabid.

I do not mean to say that the child died hydrophobous, or that its death
was accelerated by the nascent disease existing in the dog. There was
probably some nervous affection that hastened the death of the infant,
and the dog bit the child at the very period when the malady first began
to develop itself. On the following day there were morbid lesions enough
to prove beyond doubt that he was rabid.

This case is introduced because I used afterwards to accompany every
examination of supposed or doubtful rabies with greater caution than I
probably had previously used.

It is occasionally very difficult to detect the existence of rabies in
its nascent state. In the year 1813, a child attempted to rob a dog of
its morning food, and the animal resisting the theft, the child was
slightly scratched by its teeth. No one dreamed of danger. Eight days
afterwards symptoms of rabies appeared in the dog, the malady ran its
course, and the animal died. A few days afterwards the child
sickened--undoubted characteristics of rabies were observed--they ran
their course and the infant was lost.

There are other cases--fortunately not numerous--in the records of human
surgery, resembling this. A person has been bitten by a dog, he has paid
little or no attention to it, and no application of the caustic has been
made. Some weeks, or even months, have passed, he has nearly or quite
forgotten the affair, when he becomes languid and feverish, and full of
fearful apprehensions, and this appearing perhaps during several days,
or more than a week. The empoisonment has then ceased to be a local
affair, the virus has entered into the circulation, and its impression
is made on the constitution generally. Fortunately the disposition to
bite rarely develops itself until the full establishment of the disease,
otherwise we might sometimes inquire whether it were not our duty to
exterminate the whole race of dogs.

The following case deserves to be recorded. On the 21st of October,
1813, a dog was brought to me for examination. He had vomited a
considerable quantity of coagulated blood. I happened to be particularly
busy at the moment, and not observing anything peculiar in his
countenance or manner, I ordered some astringent sedative medicine, and
said that I would see him again in the afternoon.

In the course of the afternoon he was again brought. The vomiting had
quite ceased. His mouth seemed to be swollen, and, on examining him, I
found that some of his incisor teeth, both in the upper and lower jaw,
had been torn out. This somewhat alarmed me; and, on inquiring of the
servant, I was told that he suspected that they had had thieves about
the house on the preceding night, for the dog had torn away the side of
his kennel in attempting to get at them. I scolded him for not having
told me of this in the morning; and then, talking of various things, in
order to prolong the time and to be able closely to watch my patient, I
saw, or thought I saw, but in a very slight degree, that the animal was
tracing the fancied path of some imaginary object. I was then truly
alarmed, and more especially since I had discovered that in the giving
of the physic in the morning the man's hand had been scratched; a youth
had suffered the dog to lick his sore finger, and the animal had also
been observed to lick the sore ear of an infant. He was a remarkably
affectionate dog, and was accustomed to this abominable and inexcusable
nonsense.