640 
ADMINISTRATION OF MEDICINES. 
lation to the form of exhibiting medicine, vast differences of 
opinion among the veterinarians whose acquaintance I have 
had the honour to make. While there are some who never 
prescribe medicine but in the liquid form ; there are others 
who as constantly employ it in the form of electuary. Again, 
there are others who prefer for horses the form of ball. 
It is not ordinarily a matter of indifference whether we 
administer medicine under one form or the other. I shall 
expose the advantages and disadvantages which drinks have 
on the one hand, and on the other, and that which electuaries, 
balls, and pills exhibit. I shall not speak of powders, 
because under this form we ordinarily give medicines 
which are required to act slowly without manifesting strong 
action or a disagreeable taste, such as substances which 
ought, in a measure, to act after the manner of food. 
Drenches or Drinks . 
Medicines administered in a liquid form act always more 
quickly than if they had been in a solid one, because they 
arrive in shorter time in contact with the absorbent vessels 
which afford them more facility of action. Therefore it 
becomes requisite, as much as possible, to give only in a 
liquid form all such, medicines as are completely soluble in 
the recipient employed, at the same time not losing sight of 
any chemical changes which may supervene. It is always 
right to filter carefully decoctions, infusions, and macerations, 
to provide against any false route the potion may take, into 
the bronchi, occasioning more harm than is conceivable. For 
this reason we should also avoid administering such powders, 
as, by the ordinary course, remain only in suspension in any 
liquid vehicle, and best in some soft form. 
Grave inconvenience have of late occurred as the results of 
administration of drinks to domestic animals. When medi- 
cines in the liquid form are not administered with proper 
caution they may gain admission into the larynx, and from 
thence into the bronchi. There they occasion irritations and 
cough, and inflammations of the respiratory passages, often 
even death, which is ordinarily attributed in these cases 
wrongly, either to the disease or to the virtue even of the 
medicine. Already the veterinary professor, Tscheulin, has 
had occasion to observe that liquid medicines, taken by 
animals in the form of drinks, are always in danger of not 
taking the proper course and falling into the bronchi. We 
must, as much as possible, avoid mixing with drinks pow- 
ders and greasy substances. Infusions and filtered decoc- 
