Veterinary science

“ In the presentation of such subjects as hydrophobia, glanders, and anthrax care has been taken to ensure the full discussion of these affections, not only as occurring in man, but also in the lower animals, since it is highly important to provide the physician with authoritative information on at least such points of Veterinary Science as have a direct practical bearing on morbid processes in man. ”

“ From the preceding account, it is evident, that the light of science has shone conspicuously, in Europe, on the domestic animals, in relation to their treatment, both while in health, and when laboring under disease. In the United States, we have no institution for the cultivation of this branch of knowledge. The press, however, has been prolific in the production of works treating on the various branches of the veterinary art; and many persons, by their aid, have rendered themselves competent to administer to animals in cases of disease, in a rational manner. ”

“ 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. ”

“ With advancing knowledge of veterinary medicine the subject of prophylaxis is steadily assuming a more important place, and especially in the classes of enzootic and epizootic diseases. Indeed for the fatal infectious diseases of animals one can fairly estimate the medical intelligence of the people by the extent to which therapeutic treatment is still allowed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The substantial advances in veterinary pathology, bacteriology, hygiene, surgery and preventive medicine point to a still greater rate of progress. The schools in every way are better equipped, the education and training—general and technical—of students of veterinary medicine are more comprehensive and thorough, and the appliances for observation and investigation of disease have been greatly improved. ”

“ Radical treatment for the disease is far from generally satisfactory. Too often the affected animal is still in the environment which has tended strongly to its development, and it is impossible to secure a satisfactory change. ”

“ We advise calling a Veterinary Surgeon and having him perform the operation as soon as possible, as the disease is usually curable if properly handled and it cannot be transmitted to man or to the other animals. ”

“ In the determination of disease in the human being the physician, in making his diagnosis, is aided by both subjective and objective symptoms, but the veterinary physician, in a very large majority of cases, is obliged to rely almost solely upon objective symptoms, and perhaps in no class of diseases is this more true than in the exploration of those under consideration. This condition of affairs has a strong tendency to develop observation and discernment in the veterinarian, and not infrequently do we find that the successful veterinary practitioner is a very accurate diagnostician. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the high, dry lands, on the other hand, the natural tendency to immunity would be still further enhanced, as the most susceptible animals which contracted the disease, in even such a healthful district, could be in no sense fit for reproduction, and should therefore be doubly condemned. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Lastly, it may be remarked that, in view of the successful management of the parasitic disorders of animals, the veterinary practitioner must necessarily be guided by the same general principles as the physician. For myself, I may say that I have hitherto designedly withheld many practical hints which a long experience with human patients suggested, not wishing to appear to dictate to those who are constantly seeing animals. ”

“ A general hygienic and corroborative treatment may be used with the view of retarding the progress of the disease rather than of curing it. Open air exercise, sunshine, succulent pasturage, an ample supply of pure water, and active grooming are valuable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The United States Army affords the largest field for gaining practical knowledge concerning the diseases, especially of the feet, with which horses and mules are afflicted. During the late war, when so little care was given to animals in the field, when they were injured in every conceivable manner, and by all sorts of accidents, the veterinary found a field for study such as has never been opened before. ”

“ Bacteriology: Bacterium choleræ gallinaceæ, nonmotile, with polar stain, bleached by iodine, non-liquefying, causes septicæmic lesions. Lignieres’ bacillus, culture features non-gasogenic, acidifies dextrose; vitality in disinfectants; survives drying. Accessory causes: new birds in flock, or eggs for hatching, mingling of flocks, manure, watershed, streams, ponds, dust, wild birds, buzzards, rabbits, insects, infected soil. Susceptible animals: hens, doves, peafowl, pheasants, parrots, ducks, small birds, guinea pigs, rabbits, white and gray mice. Effect on sheep, horse, man, cow, frog. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Veterinary students will readily acquire needed knowledge from its pages, and veterinary schools, which would be well equipped for the work they aim to perform, cannot ignore it as their text-book in physiology.—American Veterinary Review.
Altogether, Professor Smith's "Physiology of the Domestic Animals" is a happy production, and will be hailed with delight in both the human medical and veterinary medical worlds. ”

“ 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 rare instances in which animals can be seen by the veterinary surgeon in the earliest stages of disease, and when this would prove most amenable to medical treatment; delay, generally due to the inability of those who have the care of animals to perceive these early stages; the fact that animals cannot, except in a negative manner, tell their woes, describe their sensations or indicate what and where they suffer ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Local inflammation, fibrinous exudate, concreting or becoming cheesy, necrotic, sloughy. Beneath the mucosa red, raw; without epithelium, but excess of lymphoid cells, some only muco-purulent, gravity varies. Grave cases inoculable on birds, mice, rats and rabbits. Bacillus diptheriæ avium, morphology and biology. Pathogenesis. Prevention: exclude germ; cleanliness; pure air; pure food; pure water. Quarantine strange fowls, keep flocks apart, seclude manure, segregate sick, disinfect. Treatment: Antiseptics; boric acid; sublimate: ichthyol; silver nitrate. Infection to man. ”

“ Bites of men effective to 50 per cent., protection by clothes, wool, flow of blood, cleaning of teeth by succession of bites. Infection by licking, sneezing, coughing, inhaling, feeding. Incubation 15 to 60 days in dog, 20 to 45 days in horse, 14 to 60 days in sheep, swine and cattle, 14 to 64 days in man. ”

“ Hydropathy is a very remarkable case in point, and the following pages will illustrate its value.
Priessnitz’s precepts recommend themselves as much to the veterinary surgeon as to the medical practitioner; the success of his treatment of the diseased animal being, perhaps, even more easy and certain than of man.
To understand this it will suffice to compare the habits and mode of living of each. A further investigation will account for the general health of untamed animals, and the host of maladies that result from civilisation. On one side all is nature, on the other all is artificial. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The later system of Pasteur is founded on this same general truth, as are also the methods of lessening the pathogenesis of germs by subjecting them to compressed oxygen, to graduated heating, to an altered chemical condition of the culture medium, to antisepsis, etc. For a time such weakened cultures often retain their lessened pathogenesis, even through a succession of cultures in a susceptible animal body, acting as if the germ were indeed a distinct species. ”