on the nature of dog poop. 1806

From some observations on the domestic dog:

. . . When oppressed with sickness, to which he is very subject, especially in the beginning of summer, and before ill weather, in order to procure a puke, he eats the leaves of the quicken grass, the bearded wheat grass, or the rough cock's foot grass, which gives him immediate relief. His excrements are generally hard scybals (balls of excrement - curator), which, especially after eating bones, are white, and once went by the absurd name of album graecum. This album græcum was for a long time in great repute as a drug; but it is now justly disregarded. He does not throw out his excrements promiscuously upon every thing that happens to be in the way (he doesn't? would someone tell my dog?- curator), but upon stones, trunks of trees, or barren places. This is a wise institution of nature ; for the excrements of a dog destroy almost every vegetable or animal substance. They are of such an acrid nature, that if a man's shoe touches them when recently expelled, that particular part will rot in a few days. He observes the same method in making his urine, which he throws out at a side. . .

from The New and Complete American Encyclopedia (New York: John Low, 1806), p. 305.