Abstract
Objective: Today, the public concern for 'Companion Animal" as a family member is ever increasing. Accordingly, the cases of traditional veterinary medicine treatment targeting a companion animal has been increasing, but the traditional records in literature about this have hardly ever been introduced to academic circles. Hereupon, this writing is intending to collect the prescriptions, which were once used for treating canine diseases, in order to report them to academic circles first. Method: This writing recorded the information about canine diseases and their treatment from the books related to the orthodox oriental medicine in East Asia, and analyzed their meanings. Result: Intial records about canine diseases are found in East Asian traditional medicine books including "Bonchoseubyu"(741), "Ilwhajajegaboncho"(unidentifiable period), "Jeungryuboncho"(1082), etc. The disease perceived by humans at that time was "gwa"(a boil) which is a kind of skin ailments. In addition, these medicine books show that people at that time concentrated on the value of use of a dog as meat rather than a pain of a dog's diseases. "Hwalsujaju"(1873)which was established during the Qing Dynasty leaves the most abundant data on canine diseases. This book perceived a dog as a precious existence watching over human housing and property, according to which, canine diseases and treatment methods are subdivided. The prescriptions for a dog's disease in our country are identifiable only in "Jeungbodanbangshinpyeon"(1913)과 "Bijeongmanbyeongtongchibeop"(1933). These books include the prescriptions not only for a dog's disease but also for a disease of a cow, horse, sheep, chicken, and pig, etc. which are familiar to us. Conclusion: The prescriptions used for a dog in East Asia were different from those for people. It was found that they used a medicine noticeably for external application for easy treatment, and in case of the use of an internal medicine, they adopted a method of getting dogs to take a medicine mixed with rice or porridge for dogs. Such a clue will be applied to the traditional- medicine-based treatment of a companion animal for the time to come.
