Oct2014_LOOKING BACK AT OLD PRACTICES

By Old Mill Animal Hospital

We all know that veterinary medicine has come a long way in the last few decades alone, but it’s not until you sit amongst textbooks and medical instruments from the turn of the 20th century that you appreciate just how much we have progressed!  Dr Michelle Barton from the Old Mill Veterinary Surgery has a vested interest in keeping abreast of the ever changing world of veterinary science, but it is looking back through the past that has got her most fascinated.  

Amongst the pile of textbooks are the instructions from 1891 for castrating a horse (all ten pages of them), followed by instructions for castrating a dog or cat, which just gets a half page mention.  Because, after all, dogs and cats are only kept for particular services around the farm, right?!

She then shows me a small pill box, labelled ‘Glovers Imperial Liver Pills for Dogs’, which claims to ease liver issues, as well as constipation and a host of other ailments that were alleged to be linked to the liver.  The instructions read to give ‘one or two tablets, depending on the size of the dog’.  Dr Michelle shudders at the thought of dispensing drugs with such vague labelling these days!

“Veterinary medicine has certainly come a long way.  All of these medications and books are from before the discovery of antibiotics, so ailments like pneumonia were treated with mustard & flaxseed poultices on the chest.  Or even worse – port wine drinks for dogs!”

One of the items that truly demonstrates the change in times is a ‘Teat inflator’ used for ‘curing Milk Fever’.  Just like it sounds, a large metal needle was forced into the teat then the teat was pumped up using an instrument not unlike a bike pump!  This was repeated for the whole udder, taping off each teat after inflation, until the udder had expanded and remained like this until the Milk Fever illness had passed.  This was the treatment before it was discovered in the 1940’s that lack of calcium was the actual cause, and it was simply assumed to be a ‘fever’ due to the tremoring of the cow.  To this day, you’ll notice many still refer to it as Milk Fever though!

It gives Dr Michelle a great sense of pride to be able to look back on these historical items and know that even the veterinarians of yesteryear, with their limited resources, were constantly striving for better lives for animals.  All these relics will be on show at the opening of the new Equine Dentistry facilities at the Old Mill Animal Health Precinct later in the year.  Stay tuned at www.oldmillvet.com  for more information on the upcoming events.