PART I 

 INTRODUCTION 



THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PRACTICE OF VET- 

 ERINARY MEDICINE FROM A COMMER- 

 CIAL STANDPOINT 



The practice of veterinary medicine is peculiar in 

 the fact that in many instances the veterinarian 's great- 

 est usefulness lies in the early recognition of an unfa- 

 vorable termination of a given case. But by an unfavor- 

 able, or an unsatisfactory termination we do not mean 

 the death of the patient from the effects of the disease.. 



In the practice of veterinary medicine the veterinarian 

 must nearly always measure his results on a basis of 

 dollars and cents. While there are many dangerous and 

 grave pathological conditions which the veterinarian 

 could succeed in bringing to an ultimate recovery, he is 

 frequently forced to abandon treatment and recommend 

 destruction of the horse. The time required to bring the 

 case to cure, the loss of the animal's services during this 

 time, and the veterinarian's and druggist's bill, would in 

 many eases exceed the value of the horse several times 

 over. 



The ability to foresee an unsatisfactory outcome such 

 as this, as well as the exercise of good judgment in lim- 

 iting the expense of useless treatment, is of especially 

 great importance in a city practice. Many extraordinarily 

 successful city practitioners owe their unusual success 



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