3. Introduction
Definitions
!Veterinary medicine :The branch of medicine dealing with
the study, prevention, and treatment of diseases in animals,
especially domesticated animals.
!Veterinarians: A person suitably qualified and registered
to practice veterinary medicine and Also called veterinary
surgeon.
!Disease: It is inability to perform physiological functions
at normal levels even though nutrition and other
environmental requirements are provided at adequate
levels.
4. !Clinical signs: Recognizable clinical
signs such as fever, dyspnea,
convulsions or lameness that occurred in
individual food-producing animals and
horses, which are affected with a
particular, recognizable pathological
lesion, or biochemical or metabolic deficit,
or nutritional deficiency.
!Traditional veterinary medicine: It is
based on a transposition of attitudes and
behaviour from human medicine.
5. Principles of Clinical examination of the individual
animal
• A clinical examination
has three parts:
• The history
• The animal
• The environment Clinical
examination
Animal
History The
environment
6. A. The history-taking•
In veterinary medicine, history-taking
is often the most important of the three
aspects of a clinical examination.
•Animals are unable to describe their clinical symptoms
•Dairy cattle, horses, sheep and goats are usually easy to
examine while beef cattle and pigs may be difficult to
examine adequately under some conditions.
•History-taking is an important key to accurate diagnosis
in veterinary medicine, and to be worthwhile it must be
accurate and complete.
7. History-taking method
•Establish veterinarian-client
relationship
•Asking the owner 'How can I help you
today?' It is an effective opening question,
which provides the owner the opportunity
to relate his or her concerns about the
animals(handled with diplomacy and tact)
and can use nontechnical terms.
•The clinician must try to separate owners'
observations from their interpretations.
8. •For completeness and accuracy in history-taking the clinician should
conform
to a set routine.
The system outlined below includes:
" patient data,
"Disease history
" management history.
•The order in which these parts of the history are taken will vary. In
general it is best to take the disease history first.
9. PATIENT DATA
•The relevant data include:
1.Owner's name and initials
2.Postal address and telephone number
3.Species, type, breed, Sex, age, name or number, body
weight
4. If necessary, a description, including
"colour markings,
"and other identifying marks, of the patient.
10.
11. •Computers are now being
used extensively in
veterinary practices for
recording the details of farm
calls, the animals examined
and treated, the amounts
charged for travel and
professional services, the
costs of laboratory services,
the drugs used and
dispensed, and the diseases
that occur on a particular
farm on an ongoing basis.
12. Disease history
•History-taking will vary considerably
depending on:
" whether one animal or
" a group of animals, is involved in the disease
problem under examination.
•As a general rule, in large animal work, all
disease states should be considered as herd
problems until proved to be otherwise.
•It is often rewarding to examine the remainder
of a group and find animals that are in the early
stages of the disease.
13. Disease history includes the following points:
Present disease
1.Means the clinical abnormalities observed by the owner in the sequence in
which they occurred. If more than one animal is affected, a typical case
should be chosen.
2.Variations from the normal in the physiological functions such as intake of
food or drink, milk production, growth, respiration, defecation, urination,
sweating, activity, gait, posture, voice and odor should be noted in all cases.
3.If a number of animals are affected, information may be available from
clinical pathological examinations carried out on living animals or necropsy
examinations on fatal cases.
4.The behaviour of animals before death and the period of time elapsing
between the first observable signs and death or recovery are important items
of information.
5.Prior surgical or medical procedures such as castration, docking, shearing,
or vaccination may be important factors in the production of disease.
14. Morbidity, case fatality and population
mortality rates
•The morbidity rate is usually expressed as the percentage of
animals that are
clinically affected compared with the total number of animals
exposed to the same risks.
•The case fatality rate is the percentage of affected animals that die.
•The population mortality rate is the percentage of all exposed
animals that die.
•The estimates may be important in diagnosis because of the
wide variations in morbidity, case fatality and population
mortality rates that occur in different diseases.
•An equally important figure is the proportion of animals at risk
that are clinically normal but show abnormality on the basis of
laboratory or other tests
15. •An equally
important figure
is the proportion
of animals at risk
that are clinically
normal but show
abnormality on
the basis of
laboratory or
other tests
16. Prior treatment
The owner may have treated animals
before calling for assistance (owners
reveal information about the drugs
that they have used).
•Exact details of the preparations used and doses
given may be of value in eliminating some diagnostic
possibilities.
•They will certainly be of importance when assessing
the probable efficiency of the treatment and the
significance of clinical pathological tests, and in
prescribing additional treatment.
•Drug withdrawal regulations now require that treated
animals or their products, such as milk, be withheld
from slaughter or market for varying lengths of time to
allow drug residues to reach tolerable limits.
17. Prophylactic and control
measures
•It should be ascertained whether preventive or
control procedures have already been attempted.
•There may have been clinical pathological tests,
the introduction of artificial insemination to
control venereal disease, vaccination, or
changes in nutrition, management or hygiene.
For example, in an outbreak of bovine mastitis
careful questioning should be pursued regarding
the method of disinfecting the cows' teats after
each milking, wit particular reference to the type
and concentration of the disinfectant used and
whether or not back-flushing of teat cups is
practiced
18. • Other things need to be know are:
• Previous exposure
• Culling rate
• Previous disease
• Management history
• Nutrition
• Reproductive management and
performance
