Medicine to the dog requires to be administered with caution

Medicine to the dog requires to be administered with caution

Medicine to the dog requires to be administered with caution

Medicine to the dog requires to be administered with caution. The nostrums which are so particularly recommended by grooms and farriers ought never to be made use of. The veterinary surgeon is less likely to commit error; but there are, however, few of the profession who devote attention to the dog with the zeal which the comprehension of its diseases and their treatment demand. Huntsmen and gamekeepers are generally from practical experience not altogether inapt dog doctors, where the larger and more robust kind of animal is to be treated, but for the smaller and petted species these persons ought not to be consulted. Many of their receipts are harsh not a few of them inoperative and some even dangerous; while all for the most part are pushed down at random, or in total ignorance of any effect the agents employed may induce beyond the intended one of doing good or working a certain cure. Nevertheless, with the kind of animals generally entrusted to their charge, such persons are so far successful that, in the absence of better advice, they deserve to be consulted for the larger species of dogs. The human physician will also, on occasions, be enabled to prescribe advantageously for the canine race; but not knowing the treatment of the diseases, and the symptoms being too often deceptive, the highest opinions are by no means to be absolutely relied upon.