The relief should be directed wholly to keep the cancer

The relief should be directed wholly to keep the cancer

The relief should be directed wholly to keep the cancer

The relief should be directed wholly to keep the cancer, for such it is, in a passive or quiescent state. There is no hope that nature will remove it; and every effort must be made to prevent its malignant character being by accident or otherwise provoked. With a little care the dog may die of old age, and the disease may even at the time of death be dormant. A very mild mercurial ointment may be daily applied to the surface. This will remove scurf, allay irritability, and prevent the itching, which might induce the animal to injure the part. The food must be good, proportioned to the work the creature has to perform, sufficiently nutritive, but easy of digestion, and by no means heating. The stomach must be strengthened by tonics and vegetable bitters, combined with alkalies. Sedatives are sometimes required, and hyosciamus is in that case to be preferred. A course of iodide of potassium is likewise frequently beneficial; but it must be employed only in alterative doses, and persevered with for a considerable period. The eighth of a grain or half-a-grain may be given three times a day for six months; and on the first indication of irritability appearing, the medicine must be resumed. Should the symptoms of activity be such as to excite alarm, the iodide must be administered in quantities likely to affect the system. This is to be done with safety, by dissolving two drachms of the salt in two ounces of water, every drop of which will then hold in solution the eighth of a grain of the medicine. From two to ten drops may be given at the commencement, and every day afterwards one drop may be added to the dose, which should be regularly administered thrice in the twenty-four hours. The physic should thus be gradually increased until the appetite fails; or the eyes become inflamed; or the animal is in an obvious degree dull. When that result is obtained, the dose ought to be withheld for a time, or to be diminished three or twelve drops, and the lessened quantity only given until the symptoms have subsided. The spirits, or appetite, having returned, and sufficient time having been allowed to make certain of the fact, the dose may once more be increased; and thus by degrees be augmented, until it is worked up to from fifty to a hundred drops three times a day, beyond which it ought not to be pushed. Even while this is being done, it is well to give tonic and strengthening pills; but purgatives are to be used with extreme caution.