Sporting Dogs: Their Points and Management in Health and DiseaseBarton, Frank Townend
Science
Sporting Dogs: Their Points and Management in Health and Disease
Barton, Frank Townend
Dogs
In the case of coarse-bred dogs (mongrels, etc.) the foregoing is the
usual condition of affairs. Bronchial and lung troubles are frequent,
and probably more puppies die from the broncho-pneumonia of distemper
than from other causes. Bronchitis is indicated by frequent attempts
at expectoration, and the so-called "rale," heard within the chest.
This sound is due to the air passing through the inflammatory exudate
in the tubes. If pleurisy is present, there will, during the earlier
stages, be friction or dry rubbing sounds, heard when the ear is placed
against the chest wall. It is generally associated with varying degrees
of pneumonia, either single or double. Quick breathing--more especially
noticeable in the region of the flanks--is the best guide as to its
presence for the amateur physician. Dropsy of the chest is not at all
an uncommon result of pleuritic inflammation.
When consolidation of the lungs has taken place, their respiratory
usefulness becomes materially interfered with, so that, frequently, the
animal has to make use of his lips as an auxiliary, the cheeks being
inflated in a spasmodic manner. Recovery in this advanced condition of
disease is exceedingly rare, though we have known it occur.
Pericardial (heart sac) inflammation is not uncommon in distemper,
resulting through extension of inflammation from the pleural membranes.
A disordered liver is indicated by yellowness of the skin and mucous
membranes, this bilious or hepatic form of the complaint being fairly
common.
A fetid breath and pustular eruption over the belly, and on the skin
inside the thighs are commonly observed; in fact, the pustular eruption
is the most significant sign one can find.
Its presence is at once demonstrative that the animal is affected with
what is known to the professional as a specific eruptive fever, which
will run a definite course, and no amount of medicinal agents can cut
it short.
One may control it by good nursing, suitable surroundings, and the
judicious use of medicinal agents, but for any man to say that it is
within his power to stay its normal progress, would, we opine, be
bordering on madness. So much for distemper cures and their curers.
Ordinary small-pox vaccine has been employed as a preventative for
distemper. Almost everyone knows that when the arm of the human subject
is scarified with the lancet, so as to admit the reception of the
vaccine into the system, the part becomes inflamed and swollen, the
seat of vaccination also showing a vesicle, etc., typical of a mild
form of the disease, and if this does not take place the vaccine is
said not to have "taken," _i.e._, it has done no good.
This is exactly what happens when used in the same way upon the dog,
there being neither inflammation nor yet other signs, typical of local
reaction, therefore it can be no use.
The mere fact of the disease never having occurred in a certain dog
that has been vaccinated is not the least evidence in support of its
utility.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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