With regard to treatment, the food must not be suddenly reduced to the starvation point. Whether the dog be fat or lean, let the quality be nutritious, and the quantity sufficient; from a quarter of a pound to a pound and a half of paunch, divided into four meals, will be enough for a single day; but nothing more than this must be given. Tonics, to strengthen the system generally, should be employed; and an occasional dose of the cathartic pills administered, providing the condition is such as justifies the use of purgatives. Frequent small blisters, applied over the region of the liver, may do good; but they should not be larger than two or four inches across, and they should be repeated one every three or four days. Leeches put upon the places where hardness can be felt, also are beneficial; but depletion must be regulated by the ability of the animal to sustain it. A long course of iodide of potassium in solution, combined with the liquor potassæ, will, however, constitute the principal dependence.
| Iodide of potassium | Two drachms two scruples. |
| Liquor potassæ | One ounce and a half. |
| Simple syrup | Six ounces. |
| Water | Twelve ounces and a half. |
Give from half a teaspoonful to a teaspoonful three times a day.
The above must be persevered in for a couple of months before any effect can be anticipated. Mercury I have not found of any service, though Blaine speaks highly of it, and Youatt quotes his opinion. Perhaps I have not employed it rightly, or ventured to push it far enough.
Under the treatment recommended, the dog may be preserved from speedy death; but the structures have been so much changed that medicine cannot be expected to restore them. The pet may be saved to its indulgent mistress, and again perhaps exhibit all the charms for which it was ever prized; but the sporting-dog will never be made capable of doing work, and certainly it is not to be selected to breed from after it has sustained an attack of hepatitis.
Sometimes, during the existence of hepatitis, the animal will be seized with fits of pain, which appear to render it frantic. These I always attribute to the passage of gall stones, which I have taken in comparative large quantities from the gall-bladders of dogs. The cries and struggles create alarm, but the attack is seldom fatal. A brisk purgative, a warm bath, and free use of laudanum and ether, afford relief; for when the animal dies of chronic hepatitis, it perishes gradually from utter exhaustion.
The post-mortem examination generally presents that which much surprises the proprietor; one lobe of the gland is very greatly enlarged; it evidently contains fluid. It has under disease become a vast cyst, from which, in a setter, I have actually extracted more than two gallons of serum: from a small spaniel I have taken this organ so increased in size that it positively weighed one half the amount of the body from which it was removed. The wonder is that the apparently weak covering to the liver could bear so great a pressure without bursting.