IV.— INTRA-VENOUS INJECTIONS OF IODINE. 



In veterinary practice very few substances are introduced directly 

 into the blood, and we may say that until now this method of 

 administering medicines has scarcely extended beyond the laboratories 

 and the text books. Although the first attempts at utilising certain 

 remedies, and iodine in particular, by intra-venous injection are fairly 

 old, it was long believed that the method was dangerous, and that 

 iodine introduced into the blood-stream would cause sudden death 

 by producing changes in the brain and spinal cord. Such an accident, 

 in fact, followed certain intra-venous injections of iodine in the horse, 

 but is explained without difficulty by the excessive doses and the 

 method of procedure. 



The credit of having first drawn attention to the remarkable 

 tolerance of the blood towards iodine solutions is due to Cezard, a 

 veterinary surgeon of Verennes-en-Argonne, in his ' Memoire sur la 

 Medication Antivirulente ' (1874), who stated that he injected into the 

 jugular vein of a horse weighing 1056 lbs., which was suffering from 

 chronic glanders, two drachms of iodine and four drachms of potassium 

 iodide in one dose. This injection being made slowly only produced a 

 little temporary excitement ; the animal took food almost immediately 

 afterwards, and was worked two hours later. The author adds, " For 

 intra-venous injection a two per cent, solution may be used, of which 

 a medium-sized horse will take, without inconvenience, twelve and a 

 half ounces at a dose." Four per cent, to five per cent, solutions are 

 also without danger provided they be injected slowly. In this way 

 from two and a half to ten drachms of iodine may be given to large 

 animals in twenty-four hours." 



Rossbach, who made experiments in this connection, also states 

 that intra-venous injection of relatively large doses of iodine produce 

 no complications in the horse. 



More recent experiments have shown that other animals also 

 tolerate iodine and the iodides when introduced directly into the 

 blood. According to Bohm the dog shows no particular disturbance 

 after injection of an aqueous solution in the proportion of '15 to '22 

 grain of iodine per pound of body-weight, the iodine being dissolved 



