SPECIFIC MEDICATION. 
101 
SPECIFIC MEDICATION. 
By N. J. Stringer, D.V.S., Eureka, Ills. 
A Paper read before the Illinois State Veterinary Medical Association, at Bloomington, 
February i6, 1898. 
Ill the history of medical study the department of the prac¬ 
tice of medicine is most difficult. The reasons -are twofold : 
First.—It is instruction without such means of illustrations 
as appeal to the senses—description of phenomena, which the 
student has not witnessed, and very frequently is unprepared to 
understand. 
Second.—The impression that the practice of medicine is 
almost wholly empirical stands in the way of that careful study 
of therapeutics based upon pathology which gives a rational prac¬ 
tice of medicine. 
The great change which has taken place in the past ten 
years renders it necessary that much of the past be forgotten if 
we desire to profit by the advanced knowledge of the present. 
The world has reached that stage when men refuse to be 
bound by the authority of precedent. We have arrived at that 
period in medicine when we can believe in the curative powers 
of nature. We also understand that the animal organism is so 
perfect in health that it adapts itself to all conditions, and all 
uses, renewing itself from day to day and from year to year, 
possessing the powers of resisting disease, of removing it and 
of restoration of structure and function. The power of influ¬ 
encing the system for good is limited and the old ideas of for¬ 
cibly removing disease by medicines, as we would an intruder 
from our home, are most fallacious. That which we may do 
with advantage is to direct nature’s efforts, and must be based 
upon a correct appreciation of life as manifested in the animal 
body. When we reflect that disease, when allowed to run its 
course without medicine, using only that care in nursing which 
would naturally suggest itself in such a condition, is followed 
by but a small percentage of mortality, we will be better able to 
appreciate the fallacy of the old and the advantage of the new. 
