e those answers which truly indicate
that insensibility is not established in it. If nothing be done for the
twitchings, the limb will waste; at last the general system will be
sympathetically involved, and the body will grow thin. This, however, may
not happen until long after all signs of distemper have disappeared; for
choraea, though well known to be often fatal, is always slow in its
progress, and never attended with immediate danger.

Such is an outline of the leading symptoms; and it now remains only to
more particularly point out those which indicate death and denote
recovery. The third or fourth week is the time when the dog mostly dies,
if the disorder terminates fatally; and six weeks is the average
continuance of the attack. Rapid loss of flesh is always a bad sign, and
it is worse in proportion as the appetite is good, because then nature has
lost the power of appropriation. The presence of vermin is likewise a
circumstance which in some measure is deserving of notice. If a dog
becomes, during the existence of this disorder, unusually infested with
fleas, or more especially if lice all at once cover its coat,--as these
parasites ever abound where the body is debilitated and the system
unhealthy,--they are at such a period particularly ominous. The coat
cannot, while the disease prevails, be expected to look sleek; but when it
becomes more than usually harsh, and is decidedly foul, having a peculiar
smell, which is communicated to the hand when it is passed over the body,
the anticipations are not bright. The most marked indication is, however,
given by the tongue. When this is only a little whiter than it was in
health, we may hope for recovery; but if it becomes coated, discolored,
and red and dry at its tip and edges, the worst may be foretold. The
warning is the more decided if the breath be hot and tainted, and the
belly and feet cold to the touch. While the dog can stand and walk,
however feebly, there is no reason to despair; but when it falls down, and
lies upon its side, rarely is medicine of much avail. Even then, however,
it will sometimes recover; but if, while in this state, injections are
returned as soon as they are administered, the chance that it can survive
is indeed remote.

Recovery, in extreme cases, usually commences after diarrhoea which had
set in has subsided, rather than during its attack. This is the only
semblance to anything approaching a crisis which has come hither under my
ob