Although, from a chemical standpoint, the mixture of tincture of iodine
with water would be considered wrong, I have found that the addition of
one dram of tincture of iodine to a quart of sterile water makes a most
satisfactory combination for use in veterinary practice for a number of
diseased conditions.
In mal-odorous catarrhal diseases, a mixture such as this makes a fine
wash.
In the treatment of foul-smelling ulcers and fistulous tracts, it
should be used with an irrigator after the parts have been cleaned up
and just before the usual dressing is applied.
To stimulate the process of healing in wounds and lacerations such as
barbed-wire cuts and tears.
As a moist dressing applied on gauze in old wounds.
As a soaking solution for foul-smelling hoof troubles.
As a wash for the veterinarian’s hands and arms, to prevent infection
and remove odors, after the handling of after-births, dead fetuses,
and other conditions of a similar nature.
When this preparation is used at all, it should be applied liberally;
it is cheap and the cost need never be considered. It is additionally
valuable, in a veterinary practice, because it can be made up
extemporaneously anywhere that water can be obtained, as all
veterinarians carry, in their medicine case, a supply of tincture of
iodine.
The strength may be increased if desired; however, I have found the
proportions, as given above, the most satisfactory.
In my experience, I have found that I can do everything that it is
possible to do with iodine preparations by using the medicaments
already indicated.
However, I would draw the practitioner’s attention to that preparation
of iodine known as Lugol’s solution, because there is one condition
that the veterinary practitioner comes into contact with quite
frequently in which this iodine preparation has been found to give some
very good results.
Lugol’s solution of iodine has been found to act, in a very favorable
manner, in certain cases of periodic ophthalmia in horses. It is
injected hypodermically in the region of the fatty pad just over the
affected eye. While this is not truly a topical application, the effect
that is exerted is the same as that resulting from repeated inunctions
of other active iodine preparations. The use of Lugol’s solution,
in this manner, is only to be preferred because it accomplishes the
desired end more rapidly, and with less expense of time, than would
be required by topical applications, frequently repeated. I do not
doubt that just as good and lasting results could be obtained, in this
condition, from daily inunction of the indicated area with an oily
iodine preparation.
It remains to be said that, in this condition, internal medication is
usually indicated and the iodine, in any form, applied regionally,
merely acts adjunctively in any case. I have made mention of this
use of iodine preparations because some practitioners treat periodic
ophthalmia in this manner and have claimed good results repeatedly.
Before I proceed to the discussion of the special application of
iodine, in a number of pathological conditions in animals, I would urge
the veterinarian to give more thought to the forms and preparations of
iodine of which he makes use. It is a rather common occurrence that a
practitioner will allow agents of well-known therapeutic efficiency to
be displaced, by others of doubtful activity, on account of a small
difference in the cost of the same. This is especially true in the
case of preparations in which the active ingredient, and, therefore,
the ingredient to be depended upon for results, is iodine. Iodine, to
begin with, as an elemental article, is costly. The veterinarian may,
therefore, be sure that, whenever an iodine preparation, of a certain
stated strength, is offered for sale at a price considerably lower than
that of recognized preparations of a similar character, the lower price
is possible only because of the fact that the iodine content is not as
represented.
In choosing preparations of iodine, for use in his practice, the
veterinarian can easily deprive himself of much of the success
that goes with correct iodine therapy, if he allows his choice of
preparations to be influenced, to any great extent, by the cost of the
article.
This is the chief reason, and there is probably no other, why some
veterinarians fail to get satisfactory results from topical iodine
applications. They permit their better judgment, in the selection
of the preparations, to be influenced too markedly by price; the
preparation that they select fails to give the expected results because
it is an inferior preparation, either in the strength or the quality
of the iodine it is said to carry. Commonly, both strength and quality
are inferior.
Well made and honestly prepared iodine preparations are cheaper than
almost anything that the veterinarian uses, in a pharmaceutical
way; a little of a good iodine preparation “goes a long way”; and
it accomplishes what it does solely through the exertion of its own
energy. Almost never, it might be said, are other agents expected to
assist it in its action. For this reason, it is very essential that
the preparation be of correct and ample strength, that it contain the
iodine in a form readily available by the tissues, and that the vehicle
carrying the iodine have no detrimental action of its own.
There is still another point that I wish to bring out, and that is in
regard to the fee that the practitioner charges for the handling of
a case with more or less costly iodine preparations. Usually, his fee
is too low. The practitioner should consider the fact that, in not
a few of the cases in which he uses topical iodine treatment, he is
actually depriving himself of a surgical fee, and the charge that he
makes for the treatment, in place of the operation that would otherwise
be required, should, in some degree at least, offset the loss thus
apparent. In some cases, it is even possible to get a larger fee under
these conditions, for, frequently, the owner of an animal would much
prefer that a given condition be cured without a surgical operation,
and would offer no serious objection to a higher fee for the correction
of the condition by a prolonged course of topical iodine medication. In
the case of a valuable animal, where scar formation might depreciate
the value, the smooth results, that are not uncommonly attained
with iodine preparations, actually deserve to be rated as much more
agreeable, and, therefore, worth a larger fee, than a surgical
operation.
Whenever resort is had, by the veterinarian, to applications of iodine,
in considerable amounts, he should not hesitate to inform the client
that the agent used is costly, and that a special charge will be made
therefor.
Many veterinary practitioners have come into the habit of writing
prescriptions for all iodine preparations that they find it necessary
to use, while all other medicines they dispense out of their own
pharmacy. I do not consider this good practice, for several reasons.
The main fault that I find in this is the one making it possible for
the client to have the prescription refilled without consulting the
veterinarian. It is nothing unusual for a prescription to be given to
neighbors or relatives, thus depriving the veterinarian of his fee.
Another reason that I have for finding fault with this practice, is
that many druggists will not fill a veterinary prescription honestly;
seeing that it is “only for a horse” or a cow, they do not hesitate
to use drugs, in compounding the prescription, that they would not
think of putting into a prescription for a human being--old drugs,
drugs of inferior quality, and the like. For these, as well as other
equally important reasons, the veterinarian should dispense all iodine
preparations, just as he does all others. He should not be deterred,
from using these preparations, on account of the slightly higher price
which he must pay for them, if he makes it a point to impress the worth
of the article on his client, and charges the fee that he should.