Intravenous Medication. 



It is not my purpose to take up the entire subject 

 of intravenous medication, nor to give the reader any- 

 new thought or method along this line. I simply 

 wish to register a warning note against the indis- 

 criminate use of medicaments by direct instillation 

 into the blood stream. 



In this, the average graduate veterinarian allows 

 his best judgment and his fundamental knowledge of 

 the rudiments of his profession to fail him. In this, 

 the indiscriminate use of intravenous medication, he 

 infringes most unpardonably on the kindness of na- 

 ture and commits his worst offences on the side of 

 quackery. Were this all it would not yet be so seri- 

 ous. It is the harmful and uncertain effects which 

 such treatment has on the future well-being of the 

 patient which makes this subject really worthy of at- 

 tention. 



It is only rarely that these harmful effects are 

 noted immediately and seldom if ever are they traced 

 to their causative factor when they ultimately make 

 their appearance. 



I remember only one instance where I noted an 

 untoward effect within a short time. It exhibited it- 

 self as a blindness and facial paralysis within twenty- 

 four hours. 



Many are the conditions, of varied pathological 

 significance, which may follow at long intervals upon 

 the intravenous injection of intolerable or, improperly 

 administered, tolerable medicaments. Chief among 

 these are embolism with its multiplicity of local phe- 



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