If the lids should be stuck together, the fastening
substance may be removed; but it should not be too quickly done even then.
All water, either warm, tepid, or cold--every kind of lotion, or any sort
of salve or powder--will do harm, by either weakening or irritating the
organs. As to bleeding, blistering, and setoning, which have been advised,
they are contrary to the dictates of humanity, and as a necessary
consequence, are injurious. In medicine, at least with the dog, that which
is not kind is not good. With these animals the feelings are much safer
than the reason; and a lady, consulting the impulses of her heart, would
be more likely to save her favorite than a veterinary surgeon, who
proceeded upon the practice of that which he supposed was his science. Let
the eyes of the sufferer alone--we cannot alleviate the pain, or shorten
its duration. The disease regulates the torture, and to that we must give
attention. If the distemper is conquered, the sight will mostly be
restored; but if the eyes are tampered with, consequences may ensue which
are not natural to the disease, but are induced by the crude and cruel
prejudices of the doctor. The man who, during distemper, seeing an ulcer
upon the cornea, under the imagination that by so doing he will set up a
healthy action, presumes to touch it with lunar caustic, will in the
resistance of the poor patient be rebuked, and, by the humour of the eye
squirting into his face, probably be informed that he has accomplished the
very object he intended to prevent, while a fungoid mass will spring up to
commemorate his achievement.

When the lungs are attacked, all kinds of mistaken cruelties have been
perpetrated. No wonder the disease has been so fatal, when it has been so
little understood. I cannot conceive that any dog could survive the
measures I was by my college tutor taught to pursue, or the plan which
books told me to adopt. Needlessly severe, calculated to strengthen the
disease, and to decrease the power of the animal to survive, as the
general practice decidedly is, I entreat the reader to reject it. In
truth, the involvement of the lungs is in distemper a very slight affair;
no symptom yields more quickly or to milder means. Do not forget the diet,
but let it be both low and small. The system cannot endure depletion,
therefore we must gain whatever we can through abstinence. Do not starve,
but be cautious not to cram the animal; only keep it so short that it
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