Inversion of the Uterus in a Bull Bitch after Pupping: Extirpation and Cure
By M. Cross, M. V., Milan. — In July, 1829, I was desired to attend a small bull bitch six years old, and who had had puppies four times. The uterus was completely inverted, and rested all its weight on the vaginal orifice of the urethra, preventing the discharge of the urine, and thus being the cause of great pain when the animal endeavoured to void it, or the fæcal matter. The uterus was become of almost a black colour, swelled, softened, and exhaling an insupportable odour. Judging from this that the preservation of the uterus was impossible, and reckoning much on the good constitution of the patient, I warned the proprietor of the danger of its reduction, even supposing that it was practicable, and proposed to him the complete extirpation of the uterus as the only means that remained of saving the bitch.
Armed with his consent, I passed a ligature round the neck of the uterus, at the bottom of the vagina, and drew it as tight as I possibly could. On the following day I again tightened the ligature, in order to complete the mortification of the part, and the separation of the womb. On the third day I extirpated the womb entirely, close to the haunch. There was very slight loss of blood, but there ran from the walls of the vagina a small quantity of ichorous fluid, with a strong fetid smell. The operation was scarcely completed ere she voided a considerable quantity of urine, and then searched about for something to eat and to drink.
The portion of the uterus that was removed weighed fourteen ounces. The mucous membrane by which it was lined was in a highly disorganized state. From time to time injections of a slight infusion of aromatic plants were introduced into the vagina, and the animal was nourished with liquid food of easy digestion.
The first day passed without the animal being in the slightest degree affected; but, on the following day, in despite of all our care, an ichorous fluid was discharged, which the dog would lick notwithstanding all our efforts to prevent it. The general health of the animal did not seem to be in the slightest degree affected.
On the fourth day after the operation, the cords that had served as a ligature fell off, and all suppuration from the part gradually ceased.
October 20th.
— Three months have passed since the operation, and she is perfectly well.
[Contents]/[Detailed Contents, p. 7]/[Index]
[Chapter XIV — The Distemper]
By this singular name is distinguished a prevalent disease now about to come under our consideration, which was first observed on the continent. The rapidity with which it spread, the strange protean appearances which it assumed, and its too frequent fatal termination, surprised and puzzled the veterinary surgeons; and they called it "la maladie des chiens," the disease or distemper in dogs.
is comparatively a new disease. It was imported from France about one hundred years since, although some French authors have strangely affirmed that it is of British origin. Having once gained footing among us, it has established itself in our country, to the vexation and loss of the sportsman, and the annoyance of the veterinary surgeon. However keepers, or even men of education, may boast of their specifics, it is a sadly fatal disease, and destroys fully one-third of the canine race.
Dogs of all ages are subject to its attack. Many, nine and ten years old, have died of pure distemper; and I have seen puppies of only three weeks fall victims to it; but it oftenest appears between the sixth and twelfth month of the animal's life. If it occurs at an early period, it proves fatal in the great majority of cases; and, if the dog is more than four years old, it generally goes hard with him. It is undeniably highly contagious, yet it is frequently generated. In this it bears an analogy to mange, and to farcy and glanders in the horse.
One attack of the disease, and even a severe one, is no absolute security against its return; although the dog that has once laboured under distemper possesses a certain degree of immunity; or, if he is attacked a second time, the malady usually assumes a milder type. I have, however, known it occur three times in the same animal, and at last destroy him.
catarrh will often terminate in distemper; and low and insufficient feeding will produce it. It frequently follows mange, and especially if mercury has been used in the cure of the malady. When we see a puppy with mange, and that peculiar disease in which the skin becomes corrugated, and more especially if it is a spaniel, and pot-bellied or rickety, we generally say that we can cure the mange, but it will not be long before the animal dies of distemper; and so it happens in three cases out of four. Whatever debilitates the constitution predisposes it for the reception or the generation of distemper. It, however, frequently occurs without any apparent exciting cause.
it is highly contagious cannot admit of doubt. A healthy dog can seldom, for many days, be kept with another that labours under distemper without becoming affected; and the disease is communicated by the slightest momentary contact. There is, however, a great deal of caprice about this. I have more than once kept a dog in the foul-yard of my hospital for several successive weeks, and he has not become diseased. Inoculation with the matter that flows from the nose, either limpid or purulent, and in an early or advanced stage of the distemper, will, with few exceptions, produce the disease; yet I have failed to communicate it even by this method. Inoculation used to be recommended as producing a milder and less fatal disease. So far as my experience goes, the contrary has been the result.
is also epidemic. It occurs more frequently in the spring and autumn than in the winter and summer. If one or two dogs in a certain district are affected, we may be assured that it will soon extensively prevail there; and where the disease could not possibly be communicated by contagion. Sometimes it rages all over the country. At other times it is endemic, and confined to some particular district.
only is the disease epidemic or endemic, but the form which it assumes is so. In one season, almost every dog with distemper has violent fits; at another, in the majority of cases, there will be considerable chest affection, running on to pneumonia; a few months afterwards, a great proportion of the distempered dogs will be worn down by diarrhœa, which no medicine will arrest; and presently it will be scarcely distinguishable from mild catarrh.
It
much with different breeds. The shepherd's dog, generally speaking, cares little about it; he is scarcely ill a day. The cur is not often seriously affected. The terrier has it more severely, especially the white terrier. The hound comes next in the order of severity; and after him the setter. With the small spaniel it is more dangerous; and still more so with the pointer, especially if he has the disease early. Next in the order of fatality comes the pug; and it is most fatal of all with the Newfoundland dog. Should a foreign dog be affected, he almost certainly dies. The greater part of the northern dogs brought by Captain Parry did not survive a twelvemonth; and the delicate Italian greyhound has little chance, when imported from abroad.
Not only does it thus differ in different species of dogs, but in different breeds of the same species. I have known several gentlemen who have laboured in vain for many years, to rear particular and valuable breeds of pointers and greyhounds. The distemper would uniformly carry off five out of six. Other sportsmen laugh at the supposed danger of distemper, and declare that they seldom lose a dog. This hereditary predisposition to certain kinds of disease cannot be denied, and is not sufficiently attended to. When a peculiar fatality has often followed a certain breed, the owner should cross it from another kennel, and especially from the kennel of one who boasts of his success in the treatment of distemper. This has occasionally succeeded far beyond expectation.
is time to proceed to the symptoms of this disease; but here there is very considerable difficulty, for it is a truly protean malady, and it is impossible to fix on any symptom that will invariably characterise it.
An early and frequent symptom is a gradual loss of appetite, spirits, and condition: the dog is less obedient to his master, and takes less notice of him. The eyes appear weak and watery; and there will be a very slight limpid discharge from the nose. In the morning there will, perhaps, be a little indurated mucus at the inner corner of the eye. This may continue two or three weeks without serious or scarcely recognizable illness. Then a peculiar husky cough is heard, altogether different from the sonorous cough of catarrh, or the wheezing of asthma. It is an apparent attempt to get something from the fauces or throat. By degrees the discharge from the eyes and nose, and particularly the former, will increase. More mucus will collect in the corners of the eye; and the eye will sometimes be closed in the morning. The conjunctiva and particularly that portion which covers the sclerotica, will be considerably injected, but there will not be the usual intense redness of inflammation. The vessels will be large and turgid rather than numerous, and frequently of a darkish hue. Occasionally, however, the inflammation of the conjunctiva will be exceedingly intense, the membrane vividly red, and the eye impatient of light. An opacity spreads over the cornea, and this is quickly succeeded by ulceration. The first spot of ulceration is generally found precisely in the centre of the cornea, and is perfectly circular; this will distinguish it from a scratch or other injury. The ulcer widens and deepens, and sometimes eats through the cornea, and the aqueous humour escapes. Fungous granulations spring from it, protrude through the lids, and the animal evidently suffers extreme torture.
A remarkable peculiarity attends this affection of the eye. However violent may be the inflammation, and by whatever disorganization it may be accompanied, if we can cure the distemper, the granulations will disappear, the ulcer will heal, the opacity will clear away, and the eye will not eventually suffer in the slightest degree. One-fourth part of the mischief in other cases, unconnected with distemper, would inevitably terminate in blindness; but permanent blindness is rarely the consequence of distemper.
It may not be improper here shortly to revert to the different appearance of the eye in rabies. In the early stage of this malady there is an unnatural and often terrific brightness of the eye; but the cornea in distemper is from the first rather clouded. In rabies there is frequent strabismus, with the axis of the eye distorted outwards. The apparent squinting of the eye in distemper is caused by the probably unequal protrusion of the
membrana nictitans
over a portion of the eye at the inner canthus, in order to protect it from the light. In rabies, the white cloudiness which I have described, and the occasional ulceration with very little cloudiness, and the ulceration, are confined to the cornea; but a dense green opacity comes on, speedily followed by ulceration and disorganization of every part of the eye.
The dog will, at this stage of distemper, be evidently feverish, and will shiver and creep to the fire. He will more evidently and rapidly lose flesh. The huskiness will be more frequent and troublesome, and the discharge from the nose will have greater consistence. It will be often and violently sneezed out, and will gradually become more or less purulent. It will stick about the nostrils and plug them up, and thus afford a considerable mechanical obstruction to the breathing.
progress of the disease is now uncertain. Sometimes fits come on, speedily following intense inflammation of the eye; or the inflammation of the nasal cavity appears to be communicated, by proximity, to the membrane of the brain. One fit is a serious thing. If it is followed by a second within a day or two, the chances of cure are diminished; and if they rapidly succeed each other, the dog is almost always lost. These fits seldom appear without warning; and, if their approach is carefully watched, they may possibly be prevented.
However indisposed to eat the dog may previously have been, the appetite returns when the fits are at hand, and the animal becomes absolutely voracious. Nature seems to be providing for the great expenditure of power which epilepsy will soon occasion. The mucus almost entirely disappears from the eyes, although the discharge from the nose may continue unabated; and for an hour or more before the fit there will be a champing of the lower jaw, frothing at the mouth, and discharge of saliva. The champing of the lower jaw will be seen at least twelve hours before the first fit, and will a little while precede every other. There will also be twitchings of some part of the frame, and usually of the mouth, cheek, or eyelid. It is of some consequence to attend to these, as enabling us to distinguish between fits of distemper and those of teething, worms, or unusual excitement. The latter come on suddenly. The dog is apparently well, and racing about full of spirits, and without a moment's warning he falls into violent convulsions.
We
here, likewise, be enabled to distinguish between rabies and distemper. When a person, unacquainted with dogs, sees a dog struggling in a fit, or running along unconscious of every surrounding object, or snapping at everything in his way, whether it be a human being or a stone, he raises the cry of "mad dog," and the poor brute is often sacrificed. The very existence of a fit is proof positive that the dog is not mad. No epilepsy accompanies rabies in any stage of that disease.
The inflammation of the membrane of the nose and fauces is sometimes propagated along that of the windpipe, and the dog exhibits unequivocal proofs of chest affection, or decided pneumonia.
At other times the bowels become affected, and a violent purging comes on. The fæces vary from white with a slight tinge of gray, to a dark slate or olive colour. By degrees mucus begins to mingle with the fæcal discharge, and then streaks of blood. The fæcal matter rapidly lessens, and the whole seems to consist of mingled mucus and blood; and, from first to last, the stools are insufferably offensive. When the mingled blood and mucus appear, so much inflammation exists in the intestinal canal that the case is almost hopeless.
The discharge from the nose becomes decidedly purulent. While it is white and without smell, and the dog is not too much emaciated, the termination may be favourable; but when it becomes of a darker colour, and mingled with blood, and offensive, the ethmoid or turbinated bones are becoming carious, and death supervenes. This will particularly be the case if the mouth and lips swell, and ulcers begin to appear on them, and the gums ulcerate, and a sanious and highly offensive discharge proceeds from the mouth. A singular, half-fetid smell arising from the dog, is the almost invariable precursor of death.
the disease first visited the continent, it was regarded as a humoral disease. Duhamel, who was one of the earliest to study the character of the malady, contended that the biliary sac contained the cause of the complaint; the bile assumed a concrete form, and its superabundance was the cause of disease. Barrier, one of the earliest writers on the subject, described it as a violent irregular bilious fever. Others regarded it as a mucous discharge, or a depurative; and others, as a salutary crisis, removing from the constitution that which oppressed the different organs. Others had recourse to inoculation, in order to give it a more benign character; and others, and among them Chabert, considered that it possessed a character of peculiar malignity, and he gave it a name expressive of its nature and situation —
nasal catarrh
. It exhibited the ordinary symptoms of
coryza
: it was a catarrhal affection in its early stage; but it afterwards degenerated into a species of palsy. The causes were unknown. By some, they were attributed to the natural voracity of the dog; by others, to his occasional lasciviousness; by others, to his frequent feeding on carrion, or the refuse of fat and soups.
There is no doubt that nasal catarrh is, to a very considerable degree, contagious on the continent. It often spreads over a wide extent of country, and includes numerous animals of various descriptions. It is complicated with various diseases; and particularly, at an early stage, with ophthalmia. It may be interesting to the reader to trace the progress of the disease among our continental neighbours. It commences with a certain depression of spirits; a diminution of appetite; a heaviness of the head; a heat of the mouth; an attempt to get something from the throat; an insatiable thirst; an elevated temperature of the body; a dry and painful suffocating cough; and all these circumstances continue twenty to thirty days, until at length the dog droops and dies.
duration of distemper is uncertain. It sometimes runs its course in five or six days; or it may linger on two or three months. In some cases the emaciation is rapid and extreme: danger is then to be apprehended. When the muscles of the loins are much attenuated, or almost wasted, there is little hope; and, although other symptoms may remit, and the dog may be apparently recovering, yet, if he continues to lose flesh, we may be perfectly assured that he will not live. On the other hand, let the discharge from the nose be copious, and the purging violent, and every other symptom threatening, yet if the animal gains a little flesh, we may confidently predict his recovery.
When the dog is much reduced in strength and flesh, a spasmodic affection or twitching of the muscles will sometimes be observed. It is usually confined at first to one limb; but the most decisive treatment is required, or these spasms will spread until the animal is altogether unable to stand; and while he lies every limb will be in motion, travelling, as it were, at the rate of twenty miles an hour, until the animal is worn out, and dies of absolute exhaustion. When these spasms become universal and violent, they are accompanied by constant and dreadful moans and cries.
I
n the pointer and the hound, and particularly when there is little discharge from the eyes or nose, an intense yellowness often suddenly appears all over the dog. He falls away more in twenty-four hours than it would be thought possible; his bowels are obstinately constipated; he will neither eat nor move; and in two or three days he is dead.
In the pointer, hound, and greyhound, there sometimes appears on the whole of the chest and belly a pustular eruption, which peels off in large scales. The result is usually unfavourable. A more general eruption, however, either wearing the usual form of mange, or accompanied by minute pustules, may be regarded as a favourable symptom. The disease is leaving the vital parts, and expending its last energy on the integument.
post-mortem
appearances are exceedingly unsatisfactory: they do not correspond with the original character of the disease, but with its strangely varying symptoms. If the dog has died in fits, we have inflammation of the brain or its membranes, and particularly at the base of the brain, with considerable effusion of a serous or bloody fluid. If the prevailing symptoms have led our attention to the lungs, we find inflammation of the bronchial passages, or, in a few instances, of the substance of the lungs, or the submucous tissue of the cells. We rarely have inflammation of the pulmonary pleura, and never to any extent of the intercostal pleura. In a few lingering cases, tubercles and vomicæ of the lungs have been found.
the bowels have been chiefly attacked, we have intense inflammation of the mucous membrane, and, generally speaking, the small intestines are almost filled with worms. If the dog has gradually wasted away, which is often the case when purging to any considerable extent has been encouraged or produced, we have contraction of the whole canal, including even the stomach, and sometimes considerable enlargement of the mesenteric glands
.
The membrane of the nose will always exhibit marks of inflammation, and particularly in the frontal sinuses and ethmoidal cells; and I have observed the portion of membrane on the septum, or cartilaginous division of the nostrils, between the frontal sinuses and ethmoidal cells, to be studded with small miliary tubercles. In advanced stages of the disease, attended with much defluxion from the nose, the cells of the ethmoidal bone and the frontal sinuses are filled with pus.
Ulceration is sometimes found on the membrane of the nose, oftenest on the spot to which I have referred — occasionally confined to that; and now and then spreading over the whole of the septum, and even corroding and eating through it; generally equal on both sides of the septum; in a few instances extending into the fauces; seldom found in the larynx, but occasionally seen in the bronchial passages. The other viscera rarely present any remarkable morbid appearance.
The distemper is clearly a disease of the mucous membranes, usually commencing in the membrane of the nose, and resembling nasal catarrh.
the early stage it is
coryza
, or nasal catarrh; but the affection rapidly extends, and seems to attack the mucous membranes generally, determined to some particular one, either by atmospheric influence or accidental causes, or constitutional predisposition. The fits arise from general disturbance of the system, or from the proximity of the brain to the early seat of inflammation.
This account of the nature and treatment of distemper will, perhaps, be unsatisfactory to some readers. One thing, however, is clear, that for a disease which assumes such a variety of forms, there can be no specific; yet there is not a keeper who is not in possession of some supposed infallible nostrum. Nothing can be more absurd. A disease attacking so many organs, and presenting so many and such different symptoms, must require a mode of treatment varying with the organ attacked and the symptom prevailing. The faith in these boasted specifics is principally founded on two circumstances — atmospheric influence and peculiarity of breed. There are some seasons when we can scarcely save a dog; there are others when we must almost wilfully destroy him in order to lose him. There are some breeds in which, generation after generation, five out of six die of distemper, while there are others in which not one out of a dozen dies. When the season is favourable, and the animal, by hereditary influence, is not disposed to assume the virulent type of the disease, these two important agents are overlooked, and the immunity from any fatal result is attributed to medicine. The circumstances most conducive to 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.
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 tartar emetic. From half a grain to a grain and a half of each will constitute the dose.
This will act first as an emetic, and afterwards as a gentle purgative.
, if the cough is urgent, and there is heaving at the flanks, and the nose is 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: but, if the dog still droops, and particularly if there is much huskiness, the antimonial or James's powder, nitre and digitalis, in the proportion of from half a grain to a grain of digitalis, from two to five grains of the James's powder, and from a scruple to a drachm of nitre, should be administered twice or thrice in a day. If on the third or fourth day the huskiness is not quite removed, the emetic should be repeated.
these affections of the mucous membranes, it is absolutely necessary to avoid or to get rid of every source of irritation, and worms will generally be found a very considerable one in young dogs. If we can speedily get rid of them, distemper will often rapidly disappear; but, if they are suffered to remain, diarrhœa or fits are apt to supervene: therefore some worm medicine should be administered.
I have said that vomiting is very easily excited in the dog; and that for this reason we are precluded from the use of a great many medicines in our treatment of him. Calomel, aloes, jalap, scammony, and gamboge will generally produce sickness.
are, therefore, driven to some mechanical vermifuge; and a very effectual one, and that will rarely fail of expelling even the tape-worm, is tin filings or powdered glass. From half a drachm to a drachm of either may be advantageously given twice in the day. There may generally be added to them digitalis, James's powder, and nitre, made into balls with palm oil and a little linseed meal. This course should be pursued in usual cases until two or three emetics have been given, and a ball morning and night on the intermediate days. Should the huskiness not diminish after the first two or three days, if the dog has not rapidly lost flesh, I should be disposed to take a little more blood, and to put a seton in the poll. It should be inserted between the ears, and reaching from ear to ear.
When there is fever and huskiness, and the dog is not much emaciated, a seton is an excellent remedy; but, if it is used indiscriminately, and when the animal is already losing ground, and is violently purging, we shall only hasten his doom, or rather make it more sure.
It is now, if ever, that pneumonia will be perceived. The symptoms of inflammation in the lungs of the dog can scarcely be mistaken. The quick and laborious breathing, the disinclination or inability to lie down, the elevated position of the head, and the projection of the muzzle, will clearly mark it. More blood must be subtracted, a seton inserted, the bowels opened with Epsom salts, and the digitalis, nitre, and James's powder given more frequently and in larger doses than before.
Little aid is to be derived from observation of the pulse of the dog; it differs materially in the breed, and size, and age of the animal. Many years' practice have failed in enabling me to draw any certain conclusion from it. The best place to feel the pulse of the dog is at the side. We may possibly learn from it whether digitalis is producing an intermittent pulse, which it frequently will do, and which we wish that it should do: it should then be given a little more cautiously, and in smaller quantities.
If the pneumonia is evidently conquered, or we have proceeded thus far without any considerable inflammatory affection of the chest, we must begin to change our plan of treatment. If the huskiness continues, and the discharge from the nose is increased and thicker, and the animal is losing flesh and becoming weak, we must give only half the quantity of the sedative and diuretic medicine, and add some mild tonic, as gentian, chamomile, and ginger, with occasional emetics, taking care to keep the bowels in a laxative but not purging state. The dog should likewise be urged to eat; and, if he obstinately refuses ail food, he should be forced with strong beef jelly, for a very great degree of debility will now ensue
We have thus far considered the treatment of distemper from its commencement; but it may have existed several days before we were consulted, and the dog may be thin and husky, and refusing to eat. In such case we should give an emetic, and then a dose of salts, and after that proceed to the tonic and fever balls.
Should the strength of the animal continue to decline, and the discharge from the nose become purulent and offensive, the fever medicine must be omitted, and the tonic balls, with carbonate of iron, administered. Some veterinary surgeons are very fond of gum resins and balsams. Mr.
, in his excellent treatise on the distemper in his
Canine Pathology
, recommends myrrh and benjamin, and balsam of Peru and camphor. I much doubt the efficacy of these drugs. They are beginning to get into disrepute in the practice of human medicine; and I believe that if they were all banished from the veterinary
Materia Medica
we should experience no loss. When the dog begins to recover, although not so rapidly as we could wish, the tonic balls, without the iron, may be advantageously given, with now and then an emetic, if huskiness should threaten to return; but mild and wholesome food, and country or good air, will be the best tonics.
If the discharge from the nose become very offensive, the lips swelled and ulcerated, and the breath fetid, half an ounce of yeast may be administered every noon, and the tonics morning and night; and the mouth should be frequently washed with a solution of chloride of lime.
At this period of the disease the sub-maxillary glands are sometimes very much enlarged, and a tumour or abscess is formed, which, if not timely opened, breaks, and a ragged, ill-conditioned ulcer is formed, very liable to spread, and very difficult to heal. It is prudent to puncture this tumour as soon as it begins to point, for it will never disperse. After the opening, a poultice should be applied to cleanse the ulcer; after which it should be daily washed with the compound tincture of benjamin, and dressed with calamine ointment. Some balls should be given, and the animal liberally fed.
the fits appear in an early stage, give a strong emetic; then bleed, and open the bowels with five or six grains of calomel and a quarter grain of opium: after this insert a seton, and then commence the tonic balls.
The progress of fits in the early stages of the disease may thus be arrested. The occurrence of two or three should not make us despair; but, if they occur at a later period, and when the dog is much reduced, there is little hope. This additional expenditure of animal power will probably soon carry him off. All that is to be done, is to administer a strong emetic, obviate costiveness by castor oil, and give the tonic balls with opium.
the treatment of the yellow disease little can be said; we shall not succeed in one case in twenty. When good effect has been produced, it has been by one large bleeding, opening the bowels well with Epsom salts, and then giving grain doses of calomel twice a day in a tonic ball.
it is prudent to obviate costiveness, we should recollect that there is nothing more to be dreaded, in every stage of distemper, than diarrhœa. The purging of distemper will often bid defiance to the most powerful astringents. This shows the folly of giving violent cathartics in distemper; and, when I have heard of the ten, and twenty, and thirty grains of calomel that are sometimes given, I have thought it fortunate that the stomach of the dog is so irritable. The greater part of these kill-or-cure doses is ejected, otherwise the patient would soon be carried off by super-purgation. There is an irritability about the whole of the mucous membrane that may be easily excited, but cannot be so readily allayed; and, therefore, except in the earliest stage of distemper, or in fits, or limiting ourselves to the small portion of calomel which enters into our emetic, I would never give a stronger purgative than castor-oil or Epsom salts. It is of the utmost consequence that the purging of distemper should be checked as soon as possible.
In some diseases a sudden purging, and even one of considerable violence, constitutes what is called the crisis. It is hailed as a favourable symptom, and from that moment the animal begins to recover; but this is never the case in distemper: it is a morbid action which is then going on, and which produces a dangerous degree of debility.
The proper treatment of purging in cases of distemper, is first to give a good dose of Epsom salts, in order to carry away anything that may offend, and then to ply the animal with mingled absorbents and astringents. A scruple of powdered chalk, ten grains of catechu, and five of ginger, with a quarter of a grain of opium, made into a ball with palm oil, may be given to a middle-sized dog twice or thrice every day. To this may be added injections of gruel, with the compound chalk mixture and opium.
When the twitchings which I have described begin to appear, a seton is necessary, whatever may be the degree to which the animal is reduced. Some stimulating embrocation, such as tincture of cantharides, may be rubbed along the whole course of the spine; and the medicine which has oftenest, but not always, succeeded, is castor-oil, syrup of buckthorn, and syrup of white poppies, given morning and night, and a tonic ball at noon. If the dog will not now feed, he should be forced with strong soup. As soon, however, as the spasms spread over him, accompanied by a moaning that increases to a cry, humanity demands that we put an end to that which we cannot cure. Until this happens I would not despair; for many dogs have been saved that have lain several days perfectly helpless.
to the
chorea
which I have mentioned as an occasional sequel of distemper, if the dog is in tolerable condition, and especially if he is gaining flesh, and the spring or summer is approaching, there is a chance of his doing well. A seton is the first thing; the bowels should be preserved from constipation; and the nitrate of silver, in doses of one-eighth of a grain, made into a pill with linseed meal, and increased to a quarter of a grain, should be given morning and night.
We should never make too sure of the recovery of a distempered dog, nor commit ourselves by too early a prognosis. It is a treacherous disease; the medicines should be continued until every symptom has fairly disappeared; and for a month at least.
may be interesting to add the following account of the distemper in dogs, by Dr. Jenner. Several of our modern writers have copied very closely from him.
"That disease among dogs which has familiarly been called the distemper, has not hitherto, I believe, been, much noticed by medical men. My situation in the country favouring my wishes to make some observations on this singular malady, I availed myself of it, during several successive years, among a large number of foxhounds belonging to the Earl of Berkeley; and, from observing how frequently it has been confounded with hydrophobia, I am induced to lay the result of my inquiries before the Medical and Chirurgical Society. It may be difficult, perhaps, precisely to ascertain the period of its first appearance in Britain. In this and the neighbouring counties, I have not been able to trace it back beyond the middle of the last century; but it has since spread universally. I knew a gentleman who, about forty-five years ago, destroyed the greater part of his hounds, from supposing them mad, when the distemper first broke out among them; so little was it then known by those most conversant with dogs. On the continent I find it has been known for a much longer period; it is as contagious among dogs as the small-pox, measles, or scarlet fever among the human species; and the contagious miasmata, like those arising from the diseases just mentioned, retain their infectious properties a long time after separation from the distempered animal. Young hounds, for example, brought in a state of health into a kennel, where others have gone through the distemper, seldom escape it. I have endeavoured to destroy the contagion by ordering every part of a kennel to be carefully washed with water, then whitewashed, and finally to be repeatedly fumigated with the vapour of marine acid, but without any good result.
"The dogs generally sicken early in the second week after exposure to the contagion; it is more commonly a violent disease than otherwise, and cuts off at least one in three that are attacked by it. It commences with inflammation of the substance of the lungs, and generally of the mucous membrane of the bronchi. The inflammation at the same time seizes on the membranes of the nostrils, and those lining the bones of the nose, particularly the nasal portion of the ethmoid bone. These membranes are often inflamed to such a degree as to occasion extravasation of blood, which I have observed coagulated on their surface. The breathing is short and quick, and the breath is often fetid; the teeth are covered with a dark mucus. There is frequently a vomiting of a glairy fluid. The dog commonly refuses food, but his thirst seems insatiable, and nothing cheers him like the sight of water. The bowels, although generally constipated as the disease advances, are frequently affected with diarrhœa at its commencement. The eyes are inflamed, and the sight is often obscured by mucus secreted from the eyelids, or by opacity of the cornea. The brain is often affected as early as the second day after the attack; ihe animal becomes stupid, and his general habits are changed. In this state, if not prevented by loss of strength, he sometimes wanders from his home. He is frequently endeavouring to expel by forcible expirations the mucus from the trachea and fauces, with a peculiar rattling noise. His jaws are generally smeared with it, and it sometimes flows out in a frothy state, from his frequent champing.
"During the progress of the disease, especially in its advanced stages, he is disposed to bite and gnaw anything within his reach; he has sometimes epileptic fits, and a quick succession of general though slight convulsive spasms of the muscles. If the dog survive, this affection of the muscles continues through life. He is often attacked with fits of a different description; he first staggers, then tumbles, rolls, cries as if whipped, and tears up the ground with his teeth and fore feet: he then lies down senseless and exhausted. On recovering, he gets up, moves his tail, looks placid, comes to a whistle, and appears in every respect much better than before the attack. The eyes, during this paroxysm, look bright, and, unless previously rendered dim by mucus, or opacity of the cornea, seem as if they were starting from their sockets. He becomes emaciated, and totters from feebleness in attempting to walk, or from a partial paralysis of the hind legs. In this state he sometimes lingers on till the third or fourth week, and then either begins to show signs of returning health (which seldom happens when the symptoms have continued with this degree of violence), or expires. During convalescence, he has sometimes, though rarely, profuse hæmorrhage from the nose.
"When the inflammation of the lungs is very severe, he frequently dies on the third day. I know one instance of a dog dying within twenty-four hours after the seizure; and in that short space of time the greater portion of the lungs was, from exudation, converted into a substance nearly as solid as the liver of a sound animal. In this case the liver itself was considerably inflamed, and the eyes and flesh universally were tinged with yellow, though I did not observe anything obstructing the biliary ducts. In other instances I have also observed the eyes looking yellow.
"The above is a description of the disease in its several forms; but in this, as in the diseases of the human body, there is every gradation in its violence.
"There is also another affinity to some human diseases, viz., that the animal which has once gone through it very rarely meets with a second attack. Fortunately this distemper is not communicable to man. Neither the effluvia from the diseased dog nor the bite have proved in any instance infectious; but, as it has often been confounded with canine madness, as I have before observed, it is to be wished that it were more generally understood; for those who are bitten by a dog in this state are sometimes thrown into such perturbation that hydrophobia symptoms have actually arisen from the workings of the imagination. Mr. John Hunter used to speak of a case somewhat of this description in his lectures.
"[A] gentleman who received a severe bite from a dog, soon after fancied the animal was mad. He felt a horror at the sight of liquids, and was actually convulsed on attempting to swallow them. So uncontrollable were his prepossessions, that Mr. Hunter conceived he would have died had not the dog which inflicted the wound been found and brought into his room in perfect health. This soon restored his mind to a state of tranquillity. The sight of water no longer afflicted him, and he quickly recovered."[2]
, more or less complete, is sometimes the termination of the distemper in dogs.
It is usually accompanied by chorea, and it is then, in the majority of cases, hopeless. Setons should be inserted in the poll, being then, as nearly as possible, at the commencement of the spinal cord. They should be well stimulated and worn a considerable time. If they fail, a plaster composed of common pitch, with a very small quantity of yellow wax and some powdered cantharides, spread on sheep's-skin, should be placed over the whole of the lumbar and sacral regions, extending half-way down the thigh on either side. The bowels should be kept open by mild aperients, in order that every source of irritation may be removed from the intestinal canal. Some mild and general tonic will likewise be useful, such as gentian and ginger.
The following is a very frequent and unexaggerated history of distemper, when calomel has been given in too powerful doses:
August 30, 1828
. — A spaniel, six months old, has been ailing a fortnight, and three doses of calomel have been given by the owner. He has violent purging, with tenesmus and blood. Half an ounce of caster-oil administered.
31st.
Astringents, morning, noon, and night.
Sept. 6.
The astringents have little effect, or, if the purging is restrained one day, it returns with increased violence on the following day. Getting rapidly thin. Begins to husk. Astringents continued.
10th.
The purging is at last overcome, but the huskiness has rapidly increased, accompanied by laborious and hurried respiration. — Bleed to the extent of three ounces.
11th.
The breathing relieved, but he obstinately refuses to eat, and is forced several times in the day with arrow-root or strong soup.
18th.
He had become much thinner and weaker, and died in the evening. No appearance of inflammation on the thoracic viscera, nor in any part of the alimentary canal. The intestines are contracted through the whole extent.
Veterinarian
, ii. 290.
Medico-Chirurgical Transitions
, 31st March, 1809.
[Contents]/[Detailed Contents, p. 7]/[Index]