Symptoms: There are signs of pain, violent vomiting, accompanied by profuse purging, the evacuations being mixed with blood; the lips, tongue, and mouth are swollen and white. The patient soon shows signs of collapse. The lips and ears become deadly cold; the breathing is heavy and difficult; the secretion of urine is suppressed; coma and convulsions follow, then death occurs.
Treatment: Encourage the sickness by giving warm water; also administer large quantities of raw white of egg, flour and water and barley water. Give brandy or ether subcutaneously, if signs of collapse occur.
In cases where slow poisoning by mercury occurs, caused by the injudicious use of some of the preparations of this agent for the skin, especially that called blue ointment, I have seen this salve applied as freely all over a dog as one would use lard, with the result I need not mention. Then there is the green iodide of mercury—a favourite remedy of the late Stonehenge. This is a valuable preparation for old wounds, for chronic eczema, and other skin diseases, used sparingly, and not over a large surface. Then, again, repeated doses of calomel act very injuriously.
Symptoms: Diarrhœa, the evacuations being stained with blood; loss of appetite, sickness, great wasting; profuse flow of saliva from the mouth; gums at first red and inflamed, subsequently become ulcerated—the breath being horribly foul; a rash often appears on the skin, pustules form and break, giving forth a fœtid discharge, and the hair falls off in patches. These cases usually terminate fatally, the result of exhaustion, though occasionally a patient may be saved when the case is taken in time.
Treatment: At first, give a mild dose of castor oil, with from three[1] to ten drops of laudanum; the oil, etc., may be repeated in a couple of days. Large and frequent doses of subnitrate of bismuth should also be given. When the diarrhœa is very profuse, and there is much blood being passed, tannic acid is useful, given in the following formula:—
Recipe: The Pills:
| Tannic Acid, | ½ to 4 drachms.[1] |
| Powdered Opium, | 2 to 12 grains. |
| Ex. cip., q.s. | |
Mix and divide into 12 pills.
Dose: One pill to be given every four or six hours, according to the severity of the diarrhœa.