This disease, which is much more common on the Continent than in this country, has been fairly described by Barrier and Leblanc.

Symptoms

At first, the animal is dull and depressed, and carries his head drooped; the eyelids are half-closed, and the eyes vacant in expression; the nose is hot and dry; the tongue furred; the dog prefers to lie down, and when induced or compelled to get up and walk, the pace is slow and unsteady; the bowels are confined and the urine high-coloured; the pulse is somewhat accelerated; and there are occasional, or frequent vomitings. Sooner or later, diarrhoea comes on. The evacuations are bilious, dark, and offensive; the countenance is expressive of anxiety and uneasiness; and there are evident indications of prostration. Four or five days from the onset, after shivering, vesicles appear on the head, and thence gradually spread to other parts of the body; these vesicles subsequently break, and the resulting scab falls off in due course.

A pack of hounds ate the carcasses of some sheep, dead of clavelee (smallpox). Seventeen of them became ill. At first, distemper was suspected, as the dogs were low spirited, weak, paralytic in their limbs, and had a viscid, greenish discharge from the nostrils. A copious crop of "pustules" appeared, and the disease was thereafter, rightly or wrongly, regarded as smallpox. Eleven died.

It has been stated that some dogs were infected from sheep with this disease during the recent Wiltshire epidemic; and that in both animals the disease was identical in its symptoms.

In smallpox, the skin is affected in the following manner: - The skin of the belly, groin, etc., is redder than usual, and dotted with small, roundish spots, either isolated, or irregularly clustered together. Each spot gradually gets larger, and its centre becomes prominent and pointed, and contains a clear fluid, which subsequently acquires a pus-like appearance. Each spot is now flattened. The contained fluid escapes on the rupture of its envelope; scabs form from the drying of the fluid, and gradually fall off. In some parts of the body, a permanent minute scar remains and the hair is destroyed for good.

Treatment

Aconitum * is to be given at the onset for the feverishness.

Arsenicum is required for the diarrhoea and prostration, and for the typhoid symptoms which come on towards the end of severe cases.

Mercurius, Tartar emetic, and Vaccinine may be useful in special cases.

* For the doses, etc., of these medicines, refer to the "Introductory Remarks."