There are other tumours which cannot, perhaps, be any where more conveniently considered than here, viz., enlargement of the teats, or hard schirrous tumours in them or near them.

When the milk of a suckling bitch is dried away too rapidly, or when the tears fill with milk at the time at which she would have pupped had she been with the dog, and absurd external applications are made to disperse the milk, and especially if it is a maiden bitch, in whom this secretion often periodically appears nine weeks after she has been at heat, there will sometimes remain permanent enlargements around the base of the teats, or very small, hard, kernel-like substances will be found there.

The moment one of these little hard bodies is detected, it should be taken between the finger and thumb, an incision being made through the skin with a scalpel, and should be turned or dissected out; for if it is suffered to remain, it will assuredly grow to a very considerable size, and require a serious- operation in order to its removal.

If the owner should object to this summary mode of proceeding, recourse must be had to the iodine pills, which should be given of the same strength, and with the same intervals, as for enlargement of the glands of the neck.

The iodine, however, has not so rapid nor so certain an effect as in enlargement of the glands of the neck, and it may be advisable to have recourse to another preparation of the same mineral.

Recipe (No. 17). Ointment For Schirrous Turnout

Take - Hydriodate of potash, one drachm; Lard, seven drachms: Rub them together, and form an ointment.

A quantity varying from the size of a kidney-bean to that of a filbert, in proportion to the bulk of the tumour, should be rubbed into it, and around its base, morning and night

The combined influence of the pills and the ointment will generally disperse these tumours in their early state: but if they have been permitted to grow, and to acquire considerable bulk, they will often bid defiance to any external application or internal medicine. An operation is then the only resource. The nature of this operation will vary with the size and attachment of the tumour. If it does not weigh above two or three ounces, and is quite detached from the belly, and can be in a manner drawn from it, so as to leave a kind of pedicle not larger than a finger, a ligature of double waxed silk may be passed around it, and tightened, and in the course of three or four days the tumour will drop off. If the swelling is of larger size, and is not so perfectly detached, it will be better and safer to remove it with the knife.

The sooner the owner can be prevailed upon to have one or the other of these operations performed, the better for the poor animal, for a radical cure may now be probably effected ; but at some uncertain time afterwards the tumour will begin to enlarge more rapidly; it will become red and glistening, hot and tender; and the dog will evidently suffer considerable pain. From a florid red colour, it wilt afterwards change to a darker hue, and at length assume a purple tinge, and break. A very considerable discharge of thin, ichorous, bloody fluid will follow, and an ulcer of variable depth will be formed.

This ulcer, however, will heal without much difficulty; but it will redden and break again, possibly three or four times in less than double that number of months.

Irreparable mischief was done, however, at the first ulceration, for the ichorous fluid which flowed from the wound inoculated the neighbouring parts, and other little kernels, or nuclei, will soon be felt about the base of the original tumour. Absorption likewise of a portion of this fluid took place from the surface of the wound, and the virus was carried into the circulation, and empoisoned the whole system; and, therefore, not only around the original tumour, but connected with other teats, these kernels will begin to appear. It is now a purely constitutional disease, and local means are altogether unavailing. The removal of any one of the tumours would be useless, for the one next in size would speedily begin to grow, and become fully as large as the other, and the animal might be needlessly tortured with operation upon operation. The iodine also will now be comparatively powerless.

The treatment of these tumours when they are broken, or, at least, for the first four or five times that they ulcerate, is very simple. If the dog is tolerably tractable, a poultice should be applied, and worn, being changed morning and night, until the fluid has run itself out, and the wound begins to look a little healthy. A few dressings with lint or tow, wetted with friar's balsam or tincture of aloes, will then heal the wound. If the discharge should continue more than three or four days, an astringent may be resorted to, for the long continuance of the poultice would debilitate the part, and indispose it afterwards to heal.

Recipe 18. Astringent Lotion Far Wound*

Take - Bruised oak-bark, two ounces; Powdered catechu, an nonce : Boil them in three pints of water until the fluid is reduced to a pint. Strain the decoction. and put it by for use.

The ulcer should be washed with this several times in the day. It is both astringent and healing; it will arrest the ichorous discharge, and hasten the process of granulation.