DOCS DRIVEN TO SUICIDE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3615, 19 March 1927, Page 4

DOCS DRIVEN TO SUICIDE.

MYSTERIOUS DISEASE. SYMPTOMS OF HYSTERIA. A mysterious disease which is attacking dogs of all breeds all over Britain has baffled veterinary surgeons. A London veterinary surgeon tolcl a Daily Mail reporter that the disease apparently was imported from America about two years ago. It was for some time confined to dogs in Lancashire, Cheshire, and North Wales. Cases also occurred within a radius of 30 miles of Dublin, but recently dogs all over tho country have been affected. There is, he said, no means at present of preventing or treating the disease. Much alarm is felt among dog breeders and owners of packs of hounds. The disease, which is known as “hysteria,” appears suddenly in dogs of all ages from two months. When attacked they become frenzied with pain and bang their heads against a wall. Many cases have occurred of dogs committing suicide in this way. Their eyes become inflamed and they may also go blind temporarily. • Owners have mistaken the disease for rabies and the dogs have been destroyed without investigation. In one ease" a dog suddenly attocked ran for 10 miles, and was later found in a bog in an exhausted condition. An Alsatian, in the first intensity of the disease, rushed at an iron pump and knocked out all his front teeth. A post-mortem examination of two affected dogs by a leading bacteriologist of a London hospital produced no clue to the cause of the disease. Sir John McFadyean, principal oi the Royal Veterinary College, Great College Street, Camden Town, N.W., is engaged on -research with a view to finding the cause. An East Grinstead, Sussex, reader of the Daily Mail writes that in consequence of an outbreak of the disease in his kennel of terriers he decided to have the infected dogs and those open to infection —22 in number —destroyed.