Diseases Attendant on Disordered Bowels. Rheumatism.

Diseases Attendant on Disordered Bowels. Rheumatism.

ACUTE RHEUMATISM.

It appears almost laughable to talk about a rheumatic dog; but, in fact, the animal suffers quite as, or even more acutely than the human patient, and both from the same cause over-indulgence; still with this difference the man usually suffers from attachment to the bottle; the dog endures its misery from devotion to roaming under the table. It is not an uncommon sight to behold an animal so fat that it can hardly waddle, without scruple enjoying its five meals a day; which it takes with a bloated mistress, who, according to her own account, is kept alive with the utmost difficulty by eating little and often. The dog, I say, looks for its lady's tray with regularity, besides having its own personal meal, and a bone or two to indulge any odd craving between whiles. These spoiled animals are, for the most part, old and bad tempered. They would bite, but they have no teeth, and yet they will wrathfully mumble the hand they are unable to injure; while the doting mistress, in alarm for her favorite, sits upon the sofa entreating the beast may not be hurt: begging for pity, as though it were for her own life she were pleading. The animal during this is being followed from under table to chair, growling and barking all the time; and showing every disposition, if it had but ability, to do you some grievous bodily harm. At length, after a chase that has nearly caused the fond mistress to faint and you to exhaust all patience, the poor brute is overtaken and caught; but no sooner does your hand touch the miserable beast, than it sets up a howl fit to alarm the neighborhood. On this the hand is moved from the neck to the belly, intending to raise the dog from the ground; but the howl thereon is changed to a positive scream, when the mistress starts up, declaring she can bear no more. On this you desist, to ask a few questions: "The dog has often called out in that manner?" "O yes." "And has done so, no one being near or touching it?" "O yes, when quite alone." Thereupon you request the mistress to call the animal to her; and it waddles across the carpet, every member stiff, its back arched, and its neck set, but the eye fixed upon the person who has been called in.