Treatment—­Review and correct the methods of feeding.  A dog should be neither too gross nor too lean.  Exercise, perfect cleanliness, the early morning sluice-down with cold water, and a quassia tonic.  He may need a laxative as well.

Locally—­Dusting with oxide of zinc or the violet powder of the nurseries, a lotion of lead, or arnica.  Fomentation, followed by cold water, and, when dry, dusting as above.  A weak solution of boracic acid (any chemist) will sometimes do good.

(b) Prurigo.—­Itching all over, with or without scurf.  Sometimes thickening.

Treatment—­Regulation of diet, green vegetables, fruit if he will take it, brushing and grooming, but never roughly.  Try for worms and for fleas.

(c) Eczema.—­The name is not a happy one as applied to the usual itching skin disease of dogs.  Eczema proper is an eruption in which the formed matter dries off into scales or scabs, and dog eczema, so-called, is as often as not a species of lichen.  Then, of course, it is often accompanied with vermin, nearly always with dirt, and it is irritated out of all character by the biting and scratching of the dog himself.

Treatment—­Must be both constitutional and local.  Attend to the organs of digestion.  Give a moderate dose of opening medicine, to clear away offending matter.  This simple aperient may be repeated occasionally, say once a week, and if diarrhoea be present it may be checked by the addition of a little morphia or dilute sulphuric acid.  Cream of tartar with sulphur is an excellent derivative, being both diuretic and diaphoretic, but it must not be given in doses large enough to purge.  At the same time we may give thrice daily a tonic pill like the following:—­

Sulphate of quinine, 1/8 to 3 grains; sulphate of iron, 1/2 grain to 5 grains; extract of hyoscyamus, 1/8 to 3 grains; extract of taraxacum and glycerine enough to make a pill.

Locally—­Perfect cleanliness.  Cooling lotions patted on to the sore places.  Spratts’ Cure. (N.B.—­I know what every remedy contains, or I should not recommend it.) Benzoated zinc ointment after the lotion has dried in.  Wash carefully once a week, using the ointment when skin is dry, or the lotion to allay irritation.

(2) Contagious Skin Diseases.—­These are usually called mange proper and follicular mange, or scabies.  I want to say a word on the latter first.  It depends upon a microscopic animalcule called the Acarus folliculorum.  The trouble begins by the formation of patches, from which the hair falls off, and on which may be noticed a few pimples.  Scabs form, the patches extend, or come out on other parts of the body, head, legs, belly, or sides.  Skin becomes red in white-haired dogs.  Odour of this trouble very offensive.  More pain than itching seems to be the symptomatic rule.  Whole body may become affected.

Treatment—­Dress the affected parts twice a week with the following:—­