General Considerations of Local Iodine Therapy.
While it is a fact that iodine is one of the most popular of the
many medicinal agents used by the practitioner of veterinary
medicine and surgery, it also is a fact that iodine--more so than
any other agent--is frequently used in pathological conditions and
under circumstances that lack every scientific indication for its
application. To a certain extent this is true of almost any medicinal
agent in common use, even those whose field of applicability is less
broad than that of iodine; but it is especially noteworthy in the use
of iodine.
Iodine does not differ from any other therapeutic agent with regard to
individual indications for its application; it has these as prominently
marked as have the alkaloids, physiologically. But it does differ from
almost all other therapeutical agents in the fact that, it has such a
vast field of applicability in which the indications for its use are
supported solely by clinical evidence and in which its action defies
all attempts at an explanation of results attained, on a physiological
basis.
Although the practitioner may not be able to satisfy his ethical desire
to explain the action of preparations of iodine in the latter class
of pathological conditions, he soon makes the discovery that these
actions and results are, to a very considerable degree, dependent upon
more or less well-marked clinical and physical phenomena. In order
to be able to give to his use of iodine, in its various forms, even
a semblance of ethical practice, and, also, in order to be able to
roughly classify and select the conditions in which he may use iodine
with some expectation of uniform results, it becomes imperative that
the practitioner acquaint himself with these facts and phenomena. Not
only this, but he must acquaint himself, as well, with the peculiar and
individual effects and actions, in a clinical sense, of the different
forms in which iodine is used as a topical or regional application.
What may be an indication for the use of iodine in one form, may lack
the requisite pathological status for its application in a successful
manner in one of its other forms. Thus, in a given pathological
condition, an ointment of iodine may fall far short of the therapeutic
power that the practitioner expects it to exert, despite the fact that
the case is clearly one for iodine therapy. When, on the other hand, in
the same case, use is made of the tincture of iodine, or of an aqueous
solution of iodine, the desired results may be obtained with almost
amazing promptness. Again, in another class of cases, the reverse may
be true.
Although, in a goodly proportion of the cases to be discussed in the
following chapters in this treatise, the practitioner must come into
direct and frequent clinical contact with the pathological conditions
themselves in order to become thoroughly acquainted with the clinical
and physical facts referred to, he will derive much benefit from a
careful reading of these chapters, to the extent that he will note not
only new lines of thought with regard to iodine medication, but he
may also lay, in their reading, the foundation for an ethical system
of iodine therapy in so far as this is possible in the light of our
present acquaintance with the subject.