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.
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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