CAUTION
☞Take care not to confound Dr. F. Humphreys’ Veterinary Remedies with the spawn of imitations which the wonderful success of his Remedies has warmed into existence. Imitators have taken his labels, his doses and directions, and even his name, under which to impose their Imitations upon the public. Care should be exercised to avoid impositions. Several parties have reported the loss of valuable stock through the use of these imitations.
Doses, How Much?
It is an error to suppose that animals require very large doses of Humphreys’ Homeopathic Medicines, for experience has shown sick animals to be very impressible, and easily influenced by appropriate medicine, and in general, not to require as frequent repetitions as the human subject. Those who are accustomed to give large and powerful doses of poisonous medicines in order to produce some revulsive action, such as a cathartic or sudorific, or even as an alterative, can not from hence infer the proper quantity required when only a curative result is desired.
Only experience, hence, can answer the question, How much? And experience has amply shown that for horses ten to fifteen drops is the range of doses best adapted in ordinary cases, and that while cattle and hogs require rather more, sheep and dogs require less than the doses mentioned. We have indicated in each disease the dose supposed to be best for that particular case, yet to give two or five drops more in any given case would probably not be hurtful, while to give a few drops less would not endanger the curative action for want of the requisite quantity. The truth is that precision in quantity is not indispensable to a cure. The doses indicated we think are best, but a deviation from them is by no means fatal. One physician gives much more and another many times less, and both are successful. Medicine gives a curative impulse often as well or better with five or ten drops as with more. Besides, in giving medicines to animals, from their restlessness, dodging the head, and other similar disturbing circumstances we can not, and happily need not, be very positive. Give doses as near directions, as you may be able, and the result will be satisfactory. The best and safest rule is always to follow directions given in book, chart, and on bottles. It is unsafe for you to assume that you know more than the man who made the medicine and has had many years experience and observation in using them. Young animals require but half as much as grown ones.
Repetitions—How often?
The effects of Humphreys’ Homeopathic Remedies are very prompt and positive. Often immediate, in cases of colic or other forms of neuralgia, as the medicine acts at once through the medium of the nervous system. In other acute cases, such as inflammations, the effect is equally as prompt but not so openly manifest. The medicine placed in contact with the nervous papilla of the tongue is at once by means of this connection conveyed over the entire system, while the stomach being a secreting rather than an absorbing surface, repels rather than absorbs a medicinal influence, so that medicines act better for being placed on the tongue than when they are introduced into the stomach.
The time to repeat is when the good effect has terminated. All rules of repetition are based upon this axiom. Thus, in colic and inflammation of the bowels, we repeat every fifteen, thirty or sixty minutes. In inflammation of the lungs, or chest, head, or other noble organ, or in pneumonia or similar acute diseases, we repeat once in two, three or four hours. In the yet less severe forms of disease, such as Fevers, Founder, Strangles, Distemper, Lameness, or similar diseases, a dose once in four hours, or four times per day, is quite sufficient. While in Coughs, Heaves, Ulcers, Eruptions, and similar affections, if recent, a dose morning and night is ample. In old chronic affections, a dose every day, is better than more frequent repetitions. In most cases these Remedies continue to act for weeks after having been given if undisturbed by the use of other medicines.
Alternation of Remedies
In general but one medicine is required for a disease, and it may be repeated from time to time. But cases are often met with where two Remedies are indicated at the same time, one to meet one phase of the disease, and a different Remedy to meet another. In all such cases the two medicines are given alternately. Thus give a dose of one Remedy and then, after the proper interval give the other Remedy, and thus continue the two alternately, at such intervals as the directions demand. Nor should we be deterred from the use of a remedy in a particular case, because the name given it indicates a different use, for a medicine may be curative for a particular disease, and equally so for a different or even seemingly opposite one.