Veterinary medicines

Animals benefit too. Most of the medicines veterinarians use to treat sick or injured animals are the same, or only slight variations of, the medicines doctors use to treat their human patients.

Anyone who has a pet that they have taken to see the vet, or even watched the various veterinary programmes on television, will see veterinarians using the same, or only sight variations of, the medicines used for people. Most of these medicines were developed first for people and then tested in animals to establish the proper dosage for that animal and look for any special factors vets might need to be aware of when using it.

As a result of the medicines veterinarians have available to them, it is now common for our companion animals to live to their natural old age.

There are relatively few medicines that are only used for animals. The most well known are vaccines for animal conditions such as canine distemper and feline enteritis. These vaccines are developed through exactly the same research process by which vaccines are developed for people, through the use of laboratory animals and then, in patients (in this case animal patients).