SYSTEM IN MEDICATION 11 



tient in the fact that, with very few exceptions, the dis- 

 eases to which our patients are subject have a tendency 

 to terminate in recovery; not because the diseases are 

 more mild than those affecting human beings, but be- 

 cause our patients are less vulnerable. Our patients, 

 with an occasional canine exception, lead simple exist- 

 ences. They do not consume either liquids or solids 

 deleterious to their well-being ; they do not become satu- 

 rated with nicotine or other poisons. Their nervous sys- 

 tems are not developed at the expense of their physical 

 power. And, of greatest importance, is the fact that, 

 while possessed of a brain, they have no highly developed 

 mind. 



The resisting power against disease with which our 

 patients are endowed frequently borders on the miracu- 

 lous. 



The practitioner who, by cultivating his powers of 

 observation of these characteristics, uses in his treatment 

 of disease doses just large enough to assist this power 

 will get results which will very frequently border on the 

 miraculous. In this lies the answer to the question why 

 bacterins accomplish what they do. In this lies the an- 

 swer why iodid of potassium can work such wonders ; it 

 is one of the few drugs that establishes its own limit of 

 dosage by the production of iodism. 



We do not pay enough attention to the individual in 

 veterinary practice. To most of us a horse is a horse. 

 "With hundreds of pounds of difference in size, we merely 

 administer "a dose for a horse." We accept as doses 

 for individual use what were only intended for general 

 standards. 



But it is not only in the dosage that we are in error. 

 It is just the same in the selection of a drug in a given 

 case. Most of our treatments smack of heroics. Instead 

 of gracefully bending a case to the accompaniment of 



