The treatment of fever depends upon its cause

The treatment of fever depends upon its cause

The treatment of fever depends upon its cause

The treatment of fever depends upon its cause. One of the important factors in treatment is absolute quiet. This may be obtained by placing a sick horse in a box stall, away from other animals and extraneous noises and sheltered from excessive light and drafts of air. Anodynes, belladonna, hyoscyamus, and opium act as antipyretics simply by quieting the nervous system. As an irritant exists in the blood in most cases of fever, any remedy which will favor the excretion of foreign elements from it will diminish this cause. We therefore use diaphoretics to stimulate the sweat and excretions from the skin; diuretics to favor the elimination of matter by the kidneys; cholagogues and laxatives to increase the action of the liver and intestines, and to drain from these important organs all the waste material which is aiding to choke up and congest their rich plexuses of blood vessels. The heart becomes stimulated to increased action at the outset of a fever, but this does not indicate increased strength; on the contrary, it indicates the action of an irritant to the heart that will soon weaken it. It is, therefore, irrational further to depress the heart by the use of such drugs as aconite. It is better to strengthen it and to favor the elimination of the substance that is irritating it. The increased blood pressure throughout the body may be diminished by lessening the quantity of blood. This is obtained in some cases with advantage when the disease is but starting and the animal is plethoric by direct abstraction of blood, as in bleeding from the jugular or other veins; or by derivatives, such as mustard, turpentine, or blisters applied to the skin; or by setons, which draw to the surface the fluid of the blood, thereby lessening its volume without having the disadvantage of impoverishing the elements of the blood found in bleeding. In many cases antipyretics given by the mouth and cold applied to the skin are most useful.