The muscles of the trunk are less commonly attacked, but they do not always escape. When the legs have not been thus affected, I have known the abdominal and thoracic muscles to be troubled by continuous twitchings; which, however, have been for the most part slight, and have subsided more quickly than have those of the extremities, when they have been diseased. Cholera comes on gradually; its commencement is hardly to be perceived, and it is seldom observed before the distemper is fully developed – even sometimes only when the disorder appears to be subsiding. It is not rare for it to start up while the animal is apparently recovering; and when it does so, it is always most difficult to remove. No pain is felt in the affected limb; the part rather seems to lose some portion of its sensibility.
When the hind parts are paralysed, feeling may be entirely gone; so that a pin thrust into the flesh of those parts does not even attract the notice of the dog. This does not occur in choræa, but the consciousness is dulled by that affection. The convulsed limb may be more roughly handled than the healthy ones; but violence will excite 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 choræa, 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 diarrhœa 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 observation. If simultaneously the eyes lose their red and glassy aspect, and the cough returns, the danger may be supposed to have been passed. For weeks, however, the animal will require attention; for the convalescence is often more difficult to master than the disease itself is to cure; and relapses, always more dangerous than the original attack, are by no means unusual. The recovery may not be perfect before one or even two months have expired; but usually it is rapid, and the health is better than it was previous to the disease. A dog which would before never make flesh, having had the distemper, will often become fat. I once tried all in my power to relieve a Newfoundland dog of worms, but though I persisted for months, I was at last reluctantly obliged to admit the case was beyond any treatment I dared employ. A fortnight after I had given it up, the same animal was brought to me, suffering under evident distemper. I was not displeased to see it in that state, for I felt I could overcome the disease; and I told the proprietor that with the distemper the worms would depart. So it proved, and the dog has not since been subject to the annoyance.
When the violence of the disorder has declined, the skin generally peels, the cuticle is cut off, and the hair is scurfy. I have even known the soles of the feet to cast their outer covering, and in one case three of the nails were shed. The teeth, also, are coated with a thick fur, and the breath is offensive; but as the strength returns at the same time, these circumstances are not to be viewed in a serious light. In one or two instances, where the system seemed to be so shaken that it retained no strength to cast off the lingering remnant of the distemper, mange has burst forth, and proceeded very rapidly; but it yielded with equal speed to mild external remedies, and is therefore only to be feared inasmuch as it disfigures the dog for a time, retarding the ultimate restoration to health by further taxing the enfeebled body.
During the recovery from distemper, small and delicate animals – terriers and spaniels – are very liable to faint; the dog is lively, perhaps excited, when suddenly it falls upon its side, and all its limbs stiffen. A series of these attacks may follow one another, though generally one only occurs; when numerous and rapid, there is some danger, but, as a general rule, little apprehension need be entertained. The fainting fits are of some consequence, if they exist during a sickening for, or maturing of, distemper. In pups that have not passed the climax of the disease, they are not unseldom the cause of death; but, even in that case, I have never been convinced that the measures adopted for the relief did not kill quite as much or even more than the affection. When the symptom is mistaken, and wrong remedies are resorted to, the fainting fit will often continue for hours, or never be overcome. When let alone, the attack mostly does not last longer than a quarter of an hour, and under judicious treatment the consciousness almost immediately returns. When the fainting fits occur during the progress or advance of the disease – that is, before the symptoms have begun to amend – it is usually preceded by signs of aggravation. For twelve or twenty-four hours previously the dog is perceptibly worse; it may moan or cry, and yet no organ seems to be decidedly affected more seriously than it was before. I attribute the sounds made to headache; and, confirming this opinion, there is always some heat at the scalp. The animal is dull, but immediately before the collapse it attempts to wander, and has begun to move, probably panting at the same time, when it falls without a cry, and stiffens. In this state – the rigidity occasionally being less, but the unconsciousness continuing unchanged – it will remain; the eyes are turned upward or into the skull, the gums and tongue are pallid, the legs and belly cold: the appearances are those of approaching death, which, unless relief is afforded, may in a short time take place. When the fainting occurs after convalescence is established, the attack is sudden, the symptoms are less violent, and the coma of shorter duration. In this last case there is generally little danger, but there is always sufficient reason for alarm, and help ought never to be delayed. These attacks are commonly confounded with true distemper fits, from which they are altogether distinct; and from which they may be readily distinguished by the absence of the champing of the jaw, the want of any disposition to bite, the immediate insensibility which ensues, the shrieks not being heard, and the urine or fæces not being voided. Nevertheless, the two are usually confounded, and hence many persons are found asserting that distemper fits are easily cured; and several dogs have been shown to me at different times, which their owners were confident had been attacked by distemper fits, and radically cured by the most simple, and often ridiculous specifics. I have sometimes in despair – even against my reason – tried these boasted remedies, but in no instance has the result rewarded me. Where there was real occasion for a potent medicine, and little hope that any drug could benefit, the nostrums have, without a single exception, belied the confident recommendations with which they were offered, and either have done harm or proved inoperative.
The symptoms of distemper, as the reader will, after wading through the foregoing description, have perceived, are numerous and complicated; they admit of no positive arrangement, being both eccentric in their order and appearances. Redness of the eyes, with discharge from both eyes and nose, accompanied with ordinary signs of illness, are the early indications; but even these are not to be sought for, or to be expected in any single form. The judgment must be exercised, and study strengthened by experience will alone enable any man
