This section is from the book "Everything About The Dogs", by Alvin George Eberhart. Also available from Amazon: Everything About Dogs.
Smoothcoated toy dogs are often seen with hardly any coat. Black and tan toy terriers especially, due to in-and-in breeding. It can also be the result of.deficient nutritive functions and debility. Rub the bare places with an ointment made of -
Tincture Cantharides ......................... 2 drams.
Vaseline . .:................................. 3 ounces.
Quinine ...................................2 1/2 grains.
This is a good hair grower, but here is where Eberhart's Skin Remedy will surely do the work; never failing as a hair grower. Clayton's will do the same thing.
"Elain - Is a name given to a vesicular swelling of the tongue along the sides and underneath. It comes on suddenly, is most frequent in spring and summer, and appears to be epidemic, many cases occurring in the same neighborhood at the same time; it has not been shown to be contagious, and, although it is not a fatal disease, it is a very troublesome one.
"The symptoms appear without warning and apparently without cause. The first thing generally observed is a considerable increase in the flow of saliva, which dribbles from the mouth. The breath is foetid, and on examination the tongue will be found considerably swollen, while if the disease has lasted any time there will be observed large livid vesicles, which rupture, leaving ulcers; these ultimately assume a gangrenous form and discharge fcetid matter tinged with blood."
The above description of Blain (mallgnant sore mouth) I quote from Dalziel.
I have never had a case of this trouble, which is not often found in dogs. The following was written on' this trouble by Dr. C. L. Thulichum for Forest and Stream, and it is through their courtesy that I publish it:
"Causes of this trouble are conjectural, the disease is most prevalent in the spring and summer, and more frequently found in the southern than in the northern latitudes. I do not know of any authority who assigns any particular cause for this trouble, and although I can not say with any certainty myself, I have, however, noted the following conditions, and they may be supposable causes, but I do not wish to go on record as asserting that they are the actual causes, as they are simply deductions of my own.
"I was located in the South in practice some years ago, when I first saw a case of this trouble in the clog. At that time I had on my hands several cases of anthrax or Texas fever in cattle. I noted that whenever I found a case of this trouble in the dog I could also by inquiry find that in the neighborhood some one had not long before lost a cow from the cow disease, as they called it. As the dogs were allowed, in that section, to run at large, and as a dog is, when at large, more or less of a scavenger, I concluded that either the dog affected had found the carcass of the cow that had died and been buried and dug himself up a meal from her, or that following that very desirable habit that most dogs are possessed of, rolling in carrion, he had taken a roll in this filth, and then in licking himself afterward, had thus infected his mouth with the disease. This assumption may be entirely wrong, but I give it for what it is worth and it is the most common sense cause that I can give for the disease in the section in which I met it. The English authorities do not assign any cause, simply saying that the attack often begins without any apparent or previous illness, which is so; the attack is apparently sudden, your dog seems well today and tomorrow has a very sore mouth.
Dog may be a little listless for a day or two, which may not be noticed. Next and noticeable symptom is that he wants to drink a great deal of water and drools saliva from the corners of the mouth; tongue is enlarged and thickened. You look into the mouth and find it covered on its sides and under surface with large vesicles of a red or livid color, which may end in irregular and even gangrenous ulcers; the breath is extremely offensive and discharge of salvia very great; dog will not eat and apparently can not swallow, but this is a mistake - he can, but won't, owing to the great soreness of the mouth. If the disease is not checked now it passes on to the bowels and the dog dies with severe bloody discharges.
There is only one that I have ever found necessary, and if you get at the dog promptly before the bowel trouble commences I believe you will affect a cure in every case; at least I have.
"Get an ounce of the tincture of sanquinaria canadensis at your druggist's and a camel's hair throat pencil or swab on wire. Paint the inside of the mouth and tongue where affected with this, morning and night, and give a tablet of bichloride of mercury, one-hundredth of a grain, three times a day internally. Feed nothing but milk for several days after cure is effected. Buttermilk is one of the finest adjuncts to a cure. You watch the dog closely and don't give him too much water, not until he suffers from the lack of it, but so that he will be thirsty enough to drink the buttermilk when you hand it to him. Have it as cold as possible and give him a soup plate full three times a day; one day sweet milk, the next buttermilk. After he is well, feed him for some time boiled rice and milk and buttermilk and bring him gradually on to his regular feed.
The above treatment I have found to put the mouth in such shape that the dog will take nourishment after the first twenty-four hours, and after that he will steadily improve, and four or five days sees the mouth entirely healed except that it is still tender to solid food. To a dog the size of a setter or hound you can give as high as a fiftieth of a grain at a dose of the bichloride of mercury; to pups and smaller breeds one-hundredth of a grain is enough, and in fact I confine myself to this dose with all, sized dogs under St. Bernards or mastiffs, as it is quite as effective in the smaller dose as in the larger."
 
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