Volume 2

The sportsman's cabinet, or, A correct delineation of the various dogs used in the sports of the field : including the canine race in general. Consisting of a series of engravings of every distinct breed ... To which is added, a scientific disquisition upon the distemper, canine madness, and the hydrophobia / By a veteran sportsman.

  • Taplin, William, 1740?-1807.
Date:
1803-4
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The sportsman's cabinet, or, A correct delineation of the various dogs used in the sports of the field : including the canine race in general. Consisting of a series of engravings of every distinct breed ... To which is added, a scientific disquisition upon the distemper, canine madness, and the hydrophobia / By a veteran sportsman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    elude, is taken spontaneously in a hope, and expectation, that it may mollify and afford ease to the tumefactions in the thorax. During this progressive state of compulsive abstinence, the frame becomes more and more emaciated ; this is ac- companied with a hollowness of the flank, and a more perceptible stricture upon the abdominal muscles, the aggregate of all which produces an hourly increasing weakness of the loins, so that the hind-quarters, deprived of their powers, abso- lutely drag upon the ground, holding forth an indication of speedy dissolution. Arrived at this state of wretchedness, the poor animal becomes an object of per- fect misery and of general commiseration; extended at full length, each limb no longer enabled to perform its office, and the frame alternately agitated with fre- quent twitchings and convulsive spasms, all form a complication of agonies seem- ingly combined to threaten immediate death. No refinement of thought, no sub- limity of expression, is adequate to the description of a sportsman's mortification at a scene of such distress. Every man whose mind is open to the more refined sensations, and whose heart is instinctively alive to the sufferings of those who are contributors to our pleasure, as well as the protectors of our property, -would find it impossible to witness so much misery without the most depressing reflections. For the better comprehension of this disease, and elucidation of the successful treatment, even in the worst of its stages ; it can be but candid (as it may be useful) to take a review of cases in point, as recorded by the professional writer, whose production is already mentioned, as having been the first who had promulgated a public opinion upon the subject. So soon as the leading symptoms announced the approach of disease, as in the case of the young pointer in question; he prepared a small ball with half a scruple of jalap in powder, four grains of calomel, and two of ginger; forming it into a proper consistence with conserve of hips; then covering it with a thin coat of fresh-butter to facilitate its passage, he laid it upon the root of the tongue and gave it in that form; but it continued no longer than during its solution in the stomach, from whence it almost instantly regurgitated with the most severe vomiting, entirely unaccompanied with any other substance what- ever ; and this was repeated four or five times in the two first days, but without any better success. As the disease advanced in respect to time, the predominant symptoms became more distressing, the stricture upon the abdomen occasioned a farther contraction and hollowness of the flank, and the whole such an hourly in- creasing debility of the loins as seemed to indicate the speedy approach of inevita- ble dissolution. The hinder parts had absolutely declined their powers, and could no