Veterinary medicine

“ Hygienists are learning more every day as to the exact way in which disease bacteria pass from person to person, and the reasons for the occurrence of diseases. They have learned that the accidental and unusual circumstance is least important, 8 but that there is a regular train of cause and effect, and in the knowledge of how to break this chain is the key to the proper control of an epidemic. Veterinary medicine has been able to obtain benefits from bacteriology much beyond those already so important to human medicine. ”

“ Although modern science has, by the aid of bacteriology, proved such practitioners of the rough veterinary medicine of the day to have been right in ascribing to unseen influences many of the diseases of animals which they found themselves powerless to check, the methods they employed for treatment when what they called witchcraft was at work scarcely have the support of present-day practitioners. ”

“ A neat little glass instrument (the Medicator) is put into the medicine, and takes up the requisite dose—a few drops—and at the proper moment, is placed in the mouth of the animal and discharged; in an instant the dose is given, and an amount of labor is thus saved to the owner, and of suffering to the animal, which is by no means trivial. Hundreds of animals annually die, or are rendered valueless from disease and drugging, that may be saved and promptly restored by the use of the Case of Veterinary Remedies. ”

“ In man the entire heart and connecting blood vessels are so open to examination that the physician can pronounce with the greatest accuracy not only concerning the existence of disease, but also its precise locality and nature. In the quadruped no such facility is open to us, and veterinarians have too generally refused to face the difficulty, preferring to ignore heart diseases, or still worse seeking to cover their ignorance by the assertion that such affections rarely exist. ”

“ In many cases the symptoms during an attack and between attacks are such as to identify the recurrent inflammation, and the expert can pronounce positively as to the nature of the malady. In other cases there is a degree of uncertainty, and the animal must either be returned on the general plea of diseased eyes, if they can be shown to have been faulty at the time of sale, or otherwise the horse must be put in the hands of a veterinarian and the seller notified of the action, until it can be shown whether it is the recurrent disease or not. ”

“ The acute cases are usually fatal. Those that assume a chronic form, if free from local lesions in important organs, well-fed, and, above all, kept in the open air, and changed to a different pasture, tend largely to recovery.
Prevention. The propagation of the infection from animal to animal is slow and somewhat uncertain, and when introduced by the purchase of a new ram or other animal, it may take a considerable time to affect the stock extensively, but for this reason, and because an apparently sound sheep may harbor the germ, it is difficult to oppose it successfully by segregation. ”

“ The best prevention for man is to exclude the disease from the country and its herds as is now the case in the United States. When the disease does exist in herds the attendants should cauterize any sores on the hands, and wash the hands with an antiseptic, such as a 10 per cent. carbolic acid solution, after handling the diseased. The milk and its manufactured products—butter and cheese—should be withheld from consumption until after the herd has recovered. Infection can be obviated by boiling the milk. ”

“ Mild cases in separate herd, in secluded, wide pasture with rich diet, including grain, and shelter in clean, comfortable shed at will, under tonics and antiseptics, tested by mallein at intervals, to be restored individually to work after two or more tests without reaction. Serum of immune animals subcutem. Treatment in man: surgically as in the horse, excision, curetting, antisepsis, abscesses opened and disinfected ”

“ A little experience will enable one to take up five, ten or more drops as may be required. The Medicator thus charged with the dose, can, at the convenient moment, be inserted just within the lips of the animal’s mouth, the farther back upon the tongue the better, when a slight pressure upon the top of tube injects contents, and medicine is given. ”

“ Its advent in Europe as a new disease in the second third of the 18th century, its steady spread, its continued prevalence, and extension, concur with the infection of kennels and districts by the introduction of a sick dog, in demonstrating its purely contagious nature, and this implies a living microbe transferred from animal to animal. If any doubt remained it must be dispelled by the inoculations which have been constantly successful when made on young puppies, or dogs that have not previously suffered, and on cats. A first attack confers immunity. ”

“ With a disease so fatal prevention should be the first consideration and especially when it appears in an enzootic form. Even in the absence of a definite knowledge of its germ or toxin, it is logical to avoid the locality, condition, food or water by which such germ or toxin has presumably entered the system, together with every unhygienic condition, which may have reduced the resistance of the system and laid it open to the attack. The animals should be removed to a clean, airy, building and the old one should be thoroughly emptied, purified and whitewashed, the lime-wash containing 4 ozs. ”

“ But while preferable to the abandoning of the disease to its natural course, it is always to be strongly condemned, where it is possible to adopt the method which detects the sick animal in the incipient stage by thermometry, and does away with the infection by its removal, followed by disinfection. ”

“ The use of antiseptics in veterinary surgery is saving many animals from the painful and serious consequences of wound infection. The methods of restraining animals for operation are also being improved. Veterinary hospitals are increasing in number and popularity so that animals are receiving more humane treatment when it is necessary for them to come under the surgeon's knife. A like interest is being taken in the advancement of internal medicine. Methods of nursing sick animals that will give to the patient the greatest comfort possible are coming into use. ”

“ They should have an open air life, a generous diet, including grain, perfect cleanliness and pure air in the shelter-shed, an antiseptic and tonic medication (sulphites, tonics) may be given, and every three months a new mallein test may be applied. If the individual horse passes two successive tests without reaction, and shows no other indication of glanders, if his general health appears perfect and his condition good, he may be returned to work as a sound animal. ”

“ Dogs and cats in their natural condition rarely show the disease, but contract it readily on inoculation. Cadiot found 40 cases in 9,000 post mortems of dogs. The young are apparently more susceptible than the old, and primary lesions in the abdomen are common and suggest infection through the food. ”

“ Infection is present sooner or later in all the morbid animal products. The nasal mucus, bronchial exudate, saliva, tears, contents of the cutaneous vesicle, milk, contents of the bowels, and the blood have been successfully inoculated on susceptible subjects. Inoculations with blood failed with Bryce, but proved successful with Konnhauser, Krajewski, Even, Lignieres and Physalix, so that the first named cases may be explained by a prior immunity, or by a too advanced stage of the case which furnished the matter. ”

“ Every advance made in human medicine affects the progress of veterinary science, and the invaluable investigations of Davaine, Pasteur, Chauveau, Lister and Koch have created as great a revolution in veterinary practice as in the medicine of man. ”

“ Though the disease can be fatally inoculated by transferring the blood from one horse to another, it is the rarest possible occurrence to have it propagated in this way. It can be absolutely prevented therefore by attention to the diet. ”

“ The cat and dog can also be utilized, inoculation being made on the forehead. Old wornout, but otherwise healthy asses, and even horses make very available subjects, inoculation in the nose speedily developing acute glanders. In the absence of a good subject the suspected animal is sometimes availed of, scarifications being made in the nose and the morbid product rubbed in freely. The rapid development of ulcerous wounds is characteristic. If, however, the case is chronic, and if a fair measure of immunity has been acquired this test may prove misleading. ”

“ The first form tends to develop into new structure, the second to disintegrate and decay. The tendency to one or other form depends largely on the strength or weakness of the system’s health, on the deficiency or excess of corpuscles in the exuded fluid, and on the distance of the latter from living tissues and blood supply. Much also depends on the predisposition of the genus, the tendency to suppuration in lymph being in a descending series from horse, ass, and mule, through ox and sheep, to dog, pig, and finally, the bird, in which latter suppuration is quite exceptional. ”

“ Subacute cases have lighter blood, and lesions. Chronic cases anæmic, blood diffluent, lymph glands enlarged, congested; connective tissues and serous cavities dropsical, gastric, intestinal and hepatic worms, spleen shrunken. Mortality: great in acute, less in chronic. Prevention: segregation, exclusion of all sheep from unknown or suspected flocks, antiseptic dip and quarantine for new purchases, expose a few as a test; cleanliness, disinfectants, avoid watershed from infected lands, wide range, outdoor life, generous diet, remove weak, emaciated, anæmic. Immunization. ”

“ They are not necessarily distributed through all the tissues, and in chronic cases, with strictly local lesions, the infection appears to be often confined to these or nearly so, and the contamination of other animals is slow and uncertain. ”

“ TREATMENT IN MAN. The surgical treatment of glanders in man does not differ materially from that given for animals. It is more frequently possible to deal with the local lesion in its early stages and then a thorough cauterization of the infected sore, and a little later the complete excision of the primary nodule, or the limited regional infiltration, the curetting of the adjacent parts and the maintenance of thorough disinfection by irrigation, sponging and compress will often be followed by success. ”

“ A most reprehensible practice is the private testing of herds and the sale as store animals of those that react. In this way a herd may be cleared of infection, but at tenfold expense to the public at large, as every animal sold may convey the infection into a separate herd. ”

“ A horse in vigorous condition or with an acute type of inflammation may be greatly benefited by an actively depleting treatment, whereas to the same animal in a low state of health, or during the prevalence of an epidemic form of the malady depletion may be destruction. ”

“ The veterinarian on the other hand must be an expert not only on disease, but on animal values, and if his treatment, however skillful it may be, results only in the prolonging of the life of an useless animal, the owner may charge him with imposing upon him an unnecessary outlay. ”

“ One physician gives much more and another many times less, and both are successful. Medicine gives a curative impulse often as well or better with five or ten drops as with more. Besides, in giving medicines to animals, from their restlessness, dodging the head, and other similar disturbing circumstances we can not, and happily need not, be very positive. ”

“ To continue the disease, when it may be exterminated, and to palliate its results by the treatment of generation after generation of dogs, must be promptly condemned by the political economist, to say nothing of the consideration of probable human infection.
Orrotherapy. It is not surprising that essays were made in the line of serum treatment. Babes and Lepp in 1889 had some encouraging results in transferring the blood of an immune animal into a healthy one. But Tizzoni, Schwarz and Centanni have especially worked out this method. ”

“ Special symptoms such as pain, rigors, nausea, vomiting, diarrhœa and profuse perspirations must be met by suitable remedies. Finally blood serum from healthy cattle or from immunized animals may be employed subcutem. Pure air and nourishing, easily digestible food are very essential. Every effort should be made to check the disease at its outset, as generalized acute glanders is speedily fatal, and recoveries in chronic cases usually leave a broken down constitution. ”

“ For weeks there may be no indication of constitutional disorder, appetite, rumination, milking, and other functions appearing to be normal. Driving the animal may unduly accelerate the breathing, and a careful auscultation may detect an unusually loud blowing sound behind the middle of the shoulder, a mucous râle, or a wheeze. In some cases the disease never advances farther, the trouble subsides and the subject is thereafter immune. Cases of this kind occurring 612as the first in a herd, explain some instances of what are claimed to be specially prolonged incubations. ”

“ Unless the conclusions are sound as to causes, nature, lesions, and symptoms, there can be no certain diagnosis, and without a correct diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, and treatment can have no intelligent or scientific basis. The practitioner who finds a dropsical condition and who is satisfied to pronounce it dropsy and institute treatment is abusing his trust. He must find whether this dropsy results from disease of the kidneys, heart, bloodvessels, lymphatics, liver, lungs, bowels, or the structures in which it is shown ”