176 



ill the drinking water, as intelligent a proceeding as it 

 would be to attempt to give a course of iron to a 

 human patient by dropping an old knife in the well. 

 The dose of any drug actually taken by a bird under 

 such circumstances is a matter of sheer chance. 



One original thinker some years ago recommend- 

 ed a few drops of sanitas in the drinking water as a 

 sure cure for septic fever. As I have shown that the 

 organisms of septic fever will grow in 30 per cent, of 

 pure sanitas the value of two or three drops in a 

 bottle of drinking water can be estimated. Another 

 genius, having satisfied himself that septic fever was 

 typhus, asked his doctor to give him a bottle of 

 medicine which was good for that disease in men, and 

 put a spoonful of this medicine in the bird's drinking 

 water with excellent results. There is no such thing 

 as a medicine for typhus fever; the most that can be 

 hoped from any drug is that it may alleviate certain 

 s\^mptoms which may develop in the course of the 

 disease, and which are rarely identical in any two 

 cases. 



Such grotesque absurdities are not exceptions : 

 they are rather samples of common methods of giving 

 medicines to birds. Surely it must be evident to the 

 most elementary common sense that before you can 

 begin to draw any conclusion whatever about the 

 action of a drug you must be absolutely certain of the 

 amount which was taken. Drop doses of ipecacuanha 

 wine will often stop nausea and vomiting ; in drachm 

 doses (60 drops) it is an emetic. If 3'ou don't know 

 whether the patient has taken one drop or 60, how 

 can you guess whether the drug relieved the vomiting 

 or produced it? Yet as drugs are given to birds, who 

 can sa}^ whether they took a proper dose or one 

 liundredth part of it ? If bird fanciers have not the 

 patience or intelligence to master the A B C of 

 medication, let them at least refrain from wanton 



