of the excretory ducts of the liver, in consequence of inflammation of these vessels, or the presence of concrete substances formed from the bile. The dogs in which he found the most decided traces of this disease laboured under diarrhœa, with stools of a reddish brown or black colour for one, two or three days.
The causes of jaundice are chiefly over-fatigue (thus, greyhounds are more subject to it than pointers), immersions in water, fighting, emetics or purgatives administered in over-doses, the repeated use of poisonous substances not sufficiently strong at once to destroy the animal, the swallowing of great quantities of indigestible food, and contusions of the abdominal viscera, especially about the region of the liver. The most serious, if not the most common cause, is cold after violent and long-continued exercise; and especially when the owners of dogs, seeing them refuse their food after a long chase, give them powerful purgatives or emetics.
The treatment should have strict relation to the real or supposed cause of jaundice, and its most evident concomitant circumstances. Some of these symptoms are constant and others variable. Among the first, whatever be the cause of the disease, we reckon acceleration of the pulse; fever, with paroxysms of occasional intensity; and a yellow or reddish-yellow discoloration of the urine. Among the second are constipation, diarrhœa, the absence or increase of colour in the fæcal matter, whether solid or fluid. When they are solid, they are usually void of much colour; when, on the contrary, there is diarrhœa, the fæces are generally mingled with blood more or less changed. Sometimes the dejections are nearly black, mixed with mucus. It is not unusual for a chest affection to be complicated with the lesions of the digestive organs, which are the cause of jaundice.
With these leading symptoms there are often others connected that are common to many diseases; such as dryness and heat of the mouth, a fetid smell, a staggering gait, roughness of the hair, and particularly of that of the back; an insatiable thirst, accompanied by the refusal of all food; loss of flesh, which occasionally proceeds with astonishing rapidity; a tucked-up flank, with hardness and tenderness of the anterior part of the belly.
The jaundice which is not accompanied with fever, nor indeed with any morbid change but the colour of the skin, will require very little treatment. It will usually disappear in a reasonable time, and M. Leblanc has not found that any kind of treatment would hasten that disappearance.
When any new symptom becomes superadded to jaundice, it must be immediately combated. Fever, injection of the vessels of the conjunctiva, constipation, diarrhœa, or the discoloration of the urine, require one bleeding at least, with some mucilaginous drinks. Purgatives are always injurious at the commencement of the disease.
"I consider," says M. Leblanc, "this fact to be of the utmost importance. Almost the whole of the dogs that have been brought to me seriously ill with jaundice, have been purged once or more; and either kitchen salt, or tobacco, or jalap, or syrup of buckthorn, or emetic tartar, or some unknown purgative powders, have been administered.
"Bleeding should be resorted to, and repeated if the fever continues, or the animal coughs, or the respiration be accelerated. When the pulse is subdued, and the number of pulsations are below the natural standard — if the excrements are still void of their natural colour — if the constipation continues, or the animal refuses to feed — an ounce of manna dissolved in warm water should be given, and the dog often drenched with linseed tea. If watery diarrhœa should supervene, and the belly is not hot nor tender, a drachm or more, according to the size of the dog, of the sulphate of magnesia or soda should be administered, and this medicine should be repeated if the purging continues; more especially should this aperient be had recourse to when the fæces are more or less bloody, there being no fever nor peculiar tenderness of the belly.
"When the liquid excrement contains much blood, and that blood is of a deep colour, all medicines given by the mouth should be suspended, and frequent injections should be thrown up, consisting of thin starch, with a few drops of laudanum. Too much cold water should not be allowed in this stage of the disease. Injections, and drinks composed of starch and opium, are the means most likely to succeed in the black diarrhœa, which is so frequent and so fatal, and which almost always precedes the fatal termination of all the diseases connected with jaundice.
"In simple cases of jaundice the neutral salts have seldom produced much good effect; but I have obtained considerable success from the diascordium, in doses of half a drachm to a drachm.
"Great care should be taken with regard to the diet of the dog that has had jaundice, with bloody or black diarrhœa; for the cases of relapse are frequent and serious and almost always caused by improper or too abundant food. A panada of bread, with a little butter, will constitute the best nourishment when the dog begins to recover his appetite. From this he may be gradually permitted to return to his former food. Most especially should the animal not be suffered to take cold, or to be left in a low or damp situation. This attention to the food of the convalescent dog may be thought to be pushed a little too far; but experience has taught me to consider it of the utmost importance, and it is neither expensive nor troublesome."
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