Kitabı oku: «The Dog», sayfa 12

Asthma is a frequent disease in old and petted dogs. It comes on by fits, and, through the severity of the attack, often seems to threaten suffocation; but I have not known a single case in which it has proved fatal. The cause is generally attributable to inordinate feeding, for the animals thus afflicted are always gross and fat. The disorder comes on gradually in most instances, though the fit is usually sudden. The appetite is not affected, or rather it is increased often to an extraordinary degree. The craving is great, and flesh is always preferred, while sweet and seasoned articles are much relished. On examination, the signs denoting the digestion to be deranged will be discovered. Piles are nearly constantly met with; the coat is generally in a bad condition, and the hair off in places. The nose may be dry; the membrane of the eyes congested; the teeth covered with tartar, and the breath offensive. The dog is slothful, and exertion is followed by distress. Cough may or may not exist; but it usually appears towards the latter period of the attack.

Asthma is spasm of the bronchial tubes, and when it is thoroughly established it is seldom to be cured. All medicine can accomplish is the relief of the more violent symptoms. The fits may be rendered comparatively less frequent and less severe; but the agents that best operate to that result are likely in the end to destroy the general health. Between two evils, therefore, the proprietor has to make his choice; but if he resolves to treat the disorder, he must do so knowing the drugs he makes use of are not entirely harmless.

Food is of all importance. It must be proportioned to the size of the patient, and be rather spare than full in quantity. Flesh should be denied, and coarse vegetable diet alone allowed. The digestion must also be attended to, and every means taken to invigorate the system. Exercise must be enforced, even though the animal appear to suffer in consequence of being made to walk. The skin should be daily brushed, and the bed should not be too luxurious. Sedatives are of service; and as no one of these agents will answer in every case, a constant change will be needed, that, by watching their action, the one which produces the best effect may be discovered. Opium, belladonna, hyoscyamus, assafœtida, and the rest, may be thus tried in succession; and often small doses produce those effects which the larger one seems to conceal. A pill containing any sedative, with an alterative quantity of some expectorant, may be given three times daily; but when the fit is on, I have gained the most immediate benefit by the administration of ether and opium. From one to four leeches to the chest, sometimes, are of service; but small ammoniacal blisters applied to the sides, and frequently repeated, are more to be depended upon. Trivial doses of antimonial wine or ipecacuanha wine, with an occasional emetic, will sometimes give temporary ease; but the last-named medicines are to be resorted to only after due consideration, as they greatly lower the strength. Stomachics and mild tonics at the same time are to be employed; but a cure is not to be expected. The treatment cannot be absolutely laid down; but the judgment must be exercised, and whenever the slightest improvement is remarked every effort must be made to prevent a relapse.

HEPATITIS

Liver complaints were once fashionable. A few years ago the mind of Great Britain was in distress about its bile, and blue pill with black draught literally became a part of the national diet. At present nervous and urinary diseases appear to be in vogue; but, with dogs, hepatic disorders are as prevalent as ever. The canine liver is peculiarly susceptible to disease. Very seldom have I dipped into the mysteries of their bodies but I have found the biliary gland of these animals deranged; sometimes inflamed – sometimes in an opposite condition – often enlarged – seldom diminished – rarely of uniform color – occasionally tuberculated – and not unfrequently as fat with disease as those are which have obtained for Strasburg geese a morbid celebrity.

It is, however, somewhat strange that, notwithstanding the almost universality of liver disease among petted dogs, the symptoms which denote its existence are in these creatures so obscure and undefined as rarely to be recognised. Very few dogs have healthy livers, and yet seldom is the disordered condition of this important gland suspected. Various are the causes which different authors, English and foreign, have asserted produced this effect. I shall only allude to such as I can on my own experience corroborate, and here I shall have but little to refer to. Over-feeding and excessive indulgence are the sources to which I have always traced it. In the half-starved or well-worked dog I have seen the liver involved; but have never beheld it in such a state as led me to conclude it was the principal or original seat of the affection which ended in death. On the other hand, in fatted and petted animals, I have seen the gland in a condition that warranted no doubt as to what part the fatal attack had commenced in.

When death has been the consequence of hepatic disorder, the symptoms have in every instance been chronic. I am not aware that I have been called upon to treat a case of an acute description, excepting as a phase of distemper. It would be too much to say such a form of disease does not exist in a carnivorous animal; but I have hitherto not met with it. Neither have I seen it as the effect of inveterate mange; though I have beheld obstinate skin disease the common, but far from invariable, result of chronic hepatitis. I have also known cerebral symptoms to be produced by the derangement of this gland, which, in the dog, may be the cause of almost any possible symptom, and still give so little indication of its actual condition as almost to set our reason at defiance.

When the animal is fat, the visible mucous membranes may be pallid; the tongue white; the pulse full and quick; the spirits slothful: the appetite good; the fœces natural: the bowels irregular; the breath offensive; the anus enlarged, and the rump denuded of hair, the naked skin being covered with a scaly cuticle, thickened and partially insensible.

When the animal is thin, almost all of the foregoing signs may be wanting. The dog may be only emaciated – a living skeleton, with an enlarged belly. It is dull, and has a sleepy look when undisturbed; but when its attention is attracted, the expression of its countenance is half vacant and half wild. The pupil of the eye is dilated, and the visual organs stare as though the power of recognition were enfeebled. The appetite is good and the manner gentle. The tongue is white, and occasionally reddish towards the circumference. The membranes of the eye are very pale, but not yellow. The lining of the mouth is of a faint dull tint, and often it feels cold to the touch. The coat looks not positively bad; but rather like a skin which had been well dressed by a furrier, than one which was still upon a living body.

The history in these cases invariably informs us that the animal has been fat – very fat – about six or twelve months ago. It fell away all at once, though no change was made in the diet; and yet we learn it has been physicked. No restraint has been put upon buckthorn, castor oil, aloes, sulphur, and antimony, but yet the belly will not go down – it keeps getting bigger; and now we are told the animal has a dropsy which "wants to be cured." It is natural the figure and condition should suggest the idea of ascites; but the hair does not pull out – none of the legs are swollen – the shape of the abdomen wants the appearance of gravitation, and if the patient be placed upon its back the form of the rotundity is not altered by the position of the body. Moreover, the breathing is tolerably easy: and, though if one hand be placed against the side of the belly, and the part opposite be struck with the other, there will be a marked sense of fluctuation; still we cannot accept so dubious a test against the mass of evidence that declares dropsy is not the name of the disease. To make sure, we feel the abdomen near to the line of the false ribs. This gives no pain, so we press a little hard, and in two or three places on either side, on the right, or may be the left, high up or low down; for in abnormal growths there can be no rule – in two or three places we can detect hard, solid, but smooth lumps within the cavity. This last discovery leaves no room for further doubt, so we pronounce the liver to be the organ that is principally affected. In chronic cases, especially after the dog has begun to waste, enlargement nearly always may be felt, not invariably hard, yet often so, but never soft or so soft as the other parts; and this proof should, therefore, in every instance of the kind be sought for.

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.

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.

INDIGESTION

Things must seem to have come to a pretty pass when a book is gravely written upon dyspepsia in dogs. Nevertheless, I am in earnest when I treat upon that subject; and could the animals concerned bear witness, they would testify it was indeed no joke. The Lord Mayor of London does not retire from office with a stomach more deranged than the majority of the canine race, shielded by his worshipful authority, could exhibit. The cause in both instances is the same. Dogs as they increase in years seem to degenerate sadly; till at length they mumble dainties and relish flavors with the gusto of an alderman. Pups even are not worthy of unlimited confidence. The little animals will show much ingenuity in procuring substances that make the belly ache; and, with infantine perversity, will, of their own accord, gobble things which, if administered, would excite shrieks of resistance. A litter of high-bred pups is a source of no less constant annoyance, nor does it require less incessant watching, than a nursery of children. There is so much similarity between man and dog that, from fear of too strongly wounding the self-love of my reader, I must drop the subject.

Indigestion in dogs assumes various forms, and is the source of numerous diseases. Most skin affections may be attributed to it. The inflammation of the gums, the foulness of the teeth, and the offensiveness of the breath, are produced by it. Excessive fatness, with its attendant asthma and hollow cough, are to be directly traced to a disordered digestion. In the long run, half of the petted animals die from diseases originating in this cause; and in nearly every instance the fault lies far more with the weakness of the master than with the corruptness of the beast. He who is invested with authority has more sins, than those he piously acknowledges his own, to answer for.

The symptoms are not obscure. A dislike for wholesome food, and a craving for hotly spiced or highly sweetened diet, is an indication. Thirst and sickness are more marked. A love for eating string, wood, thread, and paper, denotes the fact; and is wrongly put down to the prompting of a mere mischievous instinct: any want of natural appetite, or any evidence of morbid desire in the case of food, declares the stomach to be disordered. The dog that, when offered a piece of bread, smells it with a sleepy eye, and without taking it licks the fingers that present it, has an impaired digestion. Such an animal will perhaps only take the morsel when it is about to be withdrawn; and, having got it, does not swallow it, but places it on the ground, and stands over it with an expression of peevish disgust. A healthy dog is always decided. No animal can be more so. It will often take that which it cannot eat, but, having done so, it either throws the needless possession away or lies down, and with a determined air watches "the property." There is no vexation in its looks, no captiousness in its manner. It acts with decision, and there is purpose in what it does. The reverse is the case with dogs suffering from indigestion. They are peevish and irresolute. They take only because another shall not have. They will perhaps eat greedily what they do not want if the cat looks longfully at that which had lain before them for many minutes, and which no coaxing could induce them to swallow. They are, in their foibles, very like the higher animal.

The treatment is simple. The dog must be put upon, and strictly kept upon, an allowance. Some persons, when these animals are sent to them, because the creatures are fat and sickly, shut the dogs up for two or four days, and allow them during the period to taste nothing but water. The trick often succeeds, but it is dangerous in severe cases, and needless in mild ones. This is a heartless practice, which ignorance only would resort to; but such conduct is very general, and the people who follow it boast laughingly of its effect. They do not care for its consequences. A weakly stomach cannot be benefited by a prolonged abstinence. I have kept a dog four-and-twenty hours without food, but never longer, and then only when the animal has been brought to me with a tale about its not eating. The report, then, is assurance that food has been offered, and the inference is that the stomach is loaded. A little rest enables it to get rid of its contents, and in some measure to recover its tone. The dog, as a general rule, does well on one meal a day; afterward, the food is regularly weighed, and nothing more than the quantity is permitted. This quantity may be divided into three or four meals, and given at stated periods, so that the last is eaten at night. When thus treated, animals, which I am assured would touch nothing, have soon become possessors of vigorous appetites. At the same time, exercise and the cold bath every morning is ordered; and either tonic or gentle sedatives, with alkalies and vegetable bitters, are administered. The following are the ordinary stomach-pills, and do very well for the generality of cases: —

Make into sixteen, thirty, or eight pills, and give two daily.

The reader, however, will not depend upon any one compound, for stomach disease is remarkably capricious. Sometimes one thing and sometimes another does a great deal of good; but the same thing is seldom equally good in any two cases. Stimulants, as nitrate of silver, trisnitrate of bismuth, or nux vomica, are occasionally of great service; and so also are purgatives and emetics, but these last, when they do no benefit, always do much injury. They should, therefore, be tried last, and then with caution, the order being thus: – Tonics, sedatives, and alkalies, either singly or in combination, and frequently changed. Stimulants and excitants in small doses, gradually increased. Emetics and purgatives, mingled with any of the foregoing. The food and exercise, after all, will do more for the restoration than the medicine, which must be so long continued that the mind doubts whether it is of any decided advantage. The affection is always chronic, and time is therefore imperative for its cure.

Dogs are afflicted with a disease of the stomach, which is very like to "water-brash," "pyrosis," or "cardialgia," in the human being. The animals thus tormented are generally fully grown and weakly: a peculiarity in the walk shows the strength is feeble. The chief symptom is, however, not to be mistaken. The creature is dull just before the attack: it gets by itself, and remains quiet. All at once it rises; and without an effort, no premonitory sounds being heard, a quantity of fluid is ejected from the mouth, and by the shaking of the head scattered about. This appears to afford relief, but the same thing may occur frequently during the day. This disease of itself is not dangerous; but it is troublesome, and will make any other disorder the more likely to terminate fatally; it should, therefore, be always attended to. The food must not be neglected, and either a solution of the iodide of potassium with liquor potassæ, or pills of trisnitrate of bismuth, must be given. The preparations of iron are sometimes of use; and a leech or two, after a small blister to the side, has also seemed to be beneficial. When some ground has been gained, the treatment recommended for indigestion generally must be adopted, the choice of remedies being guided by the symptoms. The practitioner, however, must not forget that the mode of feeding has probably been the cause; and, therefore, it must ever after be an object of especial care. The cold bath and exercise, proportioned to the strength, are equally to be esteemed.

Very old dogs often die from indigestion, and in such cases the stomach will become inflated to an extent that would hardly be credited. These animals I have not observed to be subject to flatulent colic; when, therefore, the abdomen becomes suddenly tympanitic the gas is usually contained in the stomach. Fits and diarrhœa may accompany or precede the attack, which in the first instance yields to treatment; but in a month more or less returns, and is far more stubborn. Ether and laudanum, by mouth and enema, are at first to be employed; and, generally, they are successful. The liquor potassæ, chloride of lime in solution, and aromatics with chalk, may also be tried, the food being strengthening but entirely fluid. The warm bath is here highly injurious; and bleeding or purging out of the question. When the distension of the stomach is so great as to threaten suffocation, the tube of the stomach-pump may be introduced; but, unless danger be present, the practitioner ought to depend upon the efforts of nature, to support which all his measures should be directed. After recovery, meat scraped as for potting, without any admixture of vegetables, must constitute the diet; and while a sufficiency is given, a very little only must be allowed at a time. With these precautions the life may be prolonged, but the restoration of health is not to be expected.