mean to
imply, that when proper measures are adopted, distemper is less likely to
destroy than the majority of those diseases to which the dog is liable.

[Illustration]

Distemper has been hitherto regarded as an inflammatory disorder, which
was to be conquered only by antiphlogistic remedies. Bleeding, purging,
vomiting, sedatives, blisters, and setons were employed; and the more
acute the attack, the more violent were the means resorted to for the
purpose of its conquest. Under such treatment I do not wonder at the evil
character which the malady has obtained; for in proportion as the efforts
made were great, so would be the probability of the disease proving
destructive. There can be no doubt that more dogs have been killed for the
distemper than would have died from it if nature had been suffered to
take her course; and yet there is no disease that more requires help, or
rewards the practitioner more largely for the assistance he affords.

The reader is entreated to dismiss from his mind all he may have read, or
heard, or thought of this affection. Let the many tales about
never-failing receipts, and the only proper modes of treatment, be for a
time at all events forgotten, that the author, who undertakes to oppose
prejudice and to contradict authority, may at least have a patient
hearing. There is no reason to doubt that many cases which have been
called distemper have, to all appearance, been saved by each of the
reputed methods of cure. A pillet of tobacco, a tea-spoonful of salt, a
dose of castor oil, an emetic, rubbing the nose with syrup of buckthorn,
&c., &c., or anything that is famed for the purpose, may have often seemed
to check the disease; but no one who has been accustomed to depend on
these charms can deny he has frequently witnessed their failure. That they
should sometimes have seemed to do good is easily explained. In the first
place, there are very few persons who know how to recognise the early
symptoms of the malady; but it is usual for every young dog that is a
little poorly to be pronounced sick with the distemper.

The unfounded belief that all of these animals must have the disease makes
every one anticipate its advent, and tempts them to call every ailment by
the name suggested by their expectations. Two-thirds, at least, of the
cases which are so quickly cured by nostrums and specifics would on
inquiry prove to have been mistaken; and as, in the instances where a
single dose is depend