Acute inflammation of the membranes of the brain is an affection occasionally seen among dogs, and deserves especial consideration from the fact that there is presumptive evidence that many cases are taken for rabies, from which in a certain stage it is not always easy to discriminate.

Causation

The usual causes are traumatic, cerebral concussion, injuries acting directly upon the substance of the brain, intense cold, sunstroke, great mental excitement, and the extension of inflammation from adjacent organs. The disease may take its origin in otitis; less frequently it extends from the cavities of the eyes. Meningitis is sometimes developed in connection with distemper, and may follow other constitutional diseases.

Symptoms

The affection in rare instances comes on gradually but more often the onset is abrupt. The first stage is one of active congestion, and is characterized by pain, delirium and maniacal excitement. It is now that the disease is often taken for rabies. The behavior becomes changed, the voice altered, the eyes are glistening and vacant in expression, the animal is extremely restless, snaps and barks at imaginary intruders, and bites at sticks extended to him.

In meningitis as in that dreaded madness the violence and maniacal excitement occurs in paroxysms, with intervals of comparative quiet. Convulsive movements occur, snapping the jaws, champing the teeth, and foaming at the mouth, and very often prolonged general convulsions are observed. The bowels are constipated. The sense of hearing remains acute, and when called the animal will raise his head as though listening, but unable to locate from whence it comes or appreciate the significance of the sound, he does not respond.

When on his feet, if confined in a room, he circles around it sniffing at the walls, at times stopping and barking for several minutes, his voice altered and the tone pitched high. His legs tremble under him showing increasing weakness. Liquids he drinks readily and with feverish rapacity. Vomiting frequently occurs; the eyes are bloodshot, the face haggard; the pulse is quickened, and the temperature of the body notably raised. Restlessness is a marked symptom in this stage. The writer recalls the case of a young mastiff afflicted with the disease, which he allowed to run at large within his house, that the symptoms might be carefully observed by the inmates. This dog while he had strength to make the distance had a certain point to which he invariably journeyed. He would start from his bed in the kennel man's room, climb three stairs, enter the kitchen, pass from there into the dining room of his master, and stop at the hall door, then without pausing, take the same direct course back, and on reaching his bed again turn and travel the same distance, always for the same points, never deviating or passing through other doors or going beyond his self imposed limits. Other dogs lay about the rooms undisturbed and unnoticed. At first his journeys were made on an easy walk, head carried low; later on he entered a run which he kept up for an hour at a time until exhaustion overcame him, then for a brief interval he remained quiet, and when his strength returned he would again start on his wearisome run. The inmates of the house would occasionally meet him on his journeys; without any disposition to bite he would deviate only sufficiently to pass them and continue on. For two days only had he strength to climb the stairs, but until he died, some three days later, he constantly made feeble efforts to do so.

The stage of active congestion in dogs suffering from acute meningitis is short, rarely more than two or three days, when the symptoms change as an effusion forms within the cranial cavities and presses upon the brain. Drowsiness succeeds the maniacal excitement; the sight becomes dim or wholly disappears; obstructions are no longer avoided but blindly encountered. In his movements the animal seems wholly unconscious, crazed as it were; his bark is lower and feeble; he still drinks if his nose is guided to the basin; the intervals of quiet grow much longer; he rises to his feet with difficulty, his legs weak and trembling; the stupor grows more profound; paralysis ends his tiresome walks; convulsions occur often and severe; death finally results.

The disease under consideration may run a fatal course in two or three days; rarely will it extend beyond six or seven.

Diagnosis

From the foregoing symptoms it will be understood how easy it is for an observer, unfamiliar with the manifestations in both diseases to mistake acute meningitis for that dread malady, rabies, and yet after a careful analysis of both diseases the difference is as easily appreciated. The great danger of confounding them lies in the anxiety which invariably possesses people, who sacrifice dogs on the first appearance of symptoms which indicates the barest possibility of rabies; they Jump to conclusions and a diagnosis without sufficiently studying the case.

To kill an animal suspected of being mad, is not the first but the last thing to do. He should be secured and every possible precaution instituted to prevent injury to those around him, and then be carefully watched. The wisdom of this plan is all the more evident if the animal has bitten anyone; many a mind has been nearly crazed, by days of terror and horrible expectancy which might have been averted, had not panic stricken friends hurried the poor dog out of the world, when he should have been allowed to die naturally from meningitis, or possibly some other disease, in the course of which a few symptoms of rabies appeared.

The manner of the attack will aid much in diagnosis. Acute meningitis occurs more often after an accident, injury, some unusual exposure, or is developed in connection with some other disease. There is no melancholic stage as is seen in rabies, no shrinking from strangers; the disposition to worry articles, carpets, chair legs, etc., to eat indigestible substances, to lap urine, cold stones, and iron, to stray away, to attack other dogs, is absent in meningitis. Again while the voice is altered, the bark is short, sharp, high in pitch, entirely unlike the hoarse, croupy, blended howl and wail heard in rabies.

In that dread malady, wood work is bitten, straw shaken in the teeth of animals infected; sticks extended are held savagely in the mouth and withdrawn only with great effort. In meningitis these symptoms are absent ; an animal ill with the disease will bite at a stick extended, but almost immediately relinquish it, and another important diagnostic difference is, while maniacal excitement occurs in paxoxysms, it cannot be indnced by worrying the animal as in the case of madness.

In the latter disorder there appear peculiar illusions; the unfortunates will see as it were, bugs, spiders, and the like crawl along the walls, and follow them with their eyes in their imaginary course; this symptom does not appear in meningitis; neither is there a disposition to bite other animals as is the case in rabies. In the former affection vomiting generally occurs, and what is of great importance to consider, is the fact that it is an inflammatory disease, and the febrile movement is more or less marked.

Prognosis

Acute meningitis is a grave disease and recovery will but rarely take place. When developed in connection with other disorders as distemper, a fatal result may be anticipated.

Treatment

An animal manifesting the symptoms should be secured, and a measure of anxiety will be removed if care in handling is observed.

The timorous can use heavy buckskin gloves, and will doubtless feel safer for it, although after meningitis is positively determined such precautions are needless. Perfect quiet is to be enforced; the diet should be liquid bland and easily digestible, given often and in smaller quantities if vomiting is persistent. The bowels should be kept active; the syrup of buckthorn in tablespoonful doses, is an easy cathartic.

The convulsions demand an anti-spasmodic remedy, and belladonna is advised; the tincture can be administered in five drop doses every three or four hours as needed.

When the stage of effusion is reached, the iodide of potassium should be given in three grain doses, four times daily, and a blister be applied to the back of the neck. As the disease progresses the need to support the powers of the system becomes more urgent.