INTRODUCTION
Proper and enlightened attention to the wants of Domestic Animals, is not only a sentiment of humanity, but a dictate of economy. To know at least in good part what is the particular ailment of an animal, and to know also how to relieve it, would seem to be a necessary obligation of ownership. The least we can return to the many faithful animals given us, is to provide for their reasonable wants, not only in health, but also in sickness and disease. Not that every man who owns a horse, should be necessarily a veterinary surgeon; and yet the way is so simple that any intelligent person may readily cure a very large proportion, nay, almost every disease to which his animals are exposed, and yet bestow upon the subject only a moiety of attention.
Among the many blessings that Homeopathy has conferred upon the world, not among the least is the immense improvement which it has effected in the treatment of the diseases of Domestic Animals. With but little variation, to meet their peculiar habits and susceptibilities, the same remedies which have been so efficient in mitigating and curing the disease of men, women and children, have been found equally successful in arresting the diseases to which all classes of Domestic Animals are liable. The contrast is even greater. Probably from the fact that treatment of sick animals has been but little understood, and intrusted to the hands mainly of ignorant persons, who have pursued the most crude, cruel and destructive measures, often far more dangerous and life-destroying than the disease itself, a large proportion of the sick have died or been tortured to death. But when the same diseases are subjected to the mild and benign influence of intelligent Homeopathic treatment, it is found that almost every disease among them is within control, even the most fatal yielding to its magic influences.
Although at first sight it may seem strange, that animals should be successfully treated by the mild and apparently insignificant doses of Homeopathy, yet a moment’s reflection will suffice to give many reasons why this should be so. Even were it not susceptible of explanation, experience has abundantly demonstrated the fact, that animals are, if possible, even more susceptible to Homeopathic treatment than men, and its success in their case is even more striking and brilliant.
This may be, perhaps, attributed to their more regular habits, confinement to the same food and drink, absence of excitement, and freedom from the many articles of food and drink in use among the human species, which are more or less medicinal.
Owing to these circumstances, animals are very impressible, and the doses for them need not be so much larger than for the human species. It seems to be a law of nature, that the more delicate the organism, the more subject to disease. Wild animals are almost entirely exempt, while the highly artificial lives of some Domestic Animals render them subject to numerous ailments and to some very formidable diseases. Yet, as a whole, animals are far less subject to disease than men, and far more amendable to cure.
The treatment of Domestic Animals with Homeopathic Remedies, has numerous advantages.
The medicines are given at once and without trouble or annoyance, even without taking a horse from his team, or a cow from her stall. They produce no poisonous or prostrating effect so that the animal rallies at once, and without loss or deterioration of value. Animals recover much sooner and hence are able to resume work much earlier after sickness, than under any other system. But more than all, it is far more successful. Slighter diseases yield at once, and often from a single dose, while the most formidable cases that are almost absolutely incurable under old treatment, even when well conducted, often respond to the curative influence of Humphreys’ Homeopathic Remedies, while it is well known that even when animals recover under the old system of treatment such have been the ravages of disease and medicine, that their value and usefulness are generally destroyed.