I think that I know of only three standard meds in use for ferrets that were tested explicitly in ferrets for treatment purposes before being tried for them in practise: Fervac CD vax, Purevax CD vax, and IMRAB 3. There could well be others and likely are, but after 20 years with ferrets I can well recall many, many meds that were simply tried on ferrets by vets because they might work and because the pharmacology of the meds were known well enough to reduce the chances of them posing a danger. Some came from veterinary uses on other members of carnivora but a number (for example Enacard, Diazoxide, Carafate, Florinef, etc.) came from human meds. Some of the times our ferrets were the first ones trying the meds, because early on we often were treating for things that no one had treated ferrets for before. I know that at least 3 times I actually had to help the vets by calling the research scientists who developed the drugs (esp. if the meds came in capsules or pill form) and find out things like whether they could be combined with oil, whether saliva posed a problem (some meds are neutralized by it), etc. Anyway, my point -- having been there -- is that from my experience I'd have to say that I think it is safe to state that MOST standard medicines used in ferrets today were taken from uses in other species and not necessarily in the same taxonomic order and then simply TRIED on ferrets at some point in the past. I know that if people weren't around then they likely don't know how very, very much was trial and error, or that what they take as known was experimental for some of us in the past. I can often go through lists of things people are using and think: Oh, yeah, we were the first to try that one, so-and-so was the first to try that other one, and on and on. BTW, among the ones for which we were the first or the simultaneous first are Enacard, Diazoxide, and Florinef, but there are many more. Steve and I were even the first ones willing to try chemo for lympho in ferrets (twice, actually, before Katie Fritz then did for Bandit). Right now we have one girl of a few scant handful of ferrets being treated for Level Three A/V Node Block, and for each and every one of those individuals at least approach being used is based on knowledge from other species that is simply being tried. Hey. Sevie has lived over 3 months since she should have died, has no pain, and is happy even though she is terminal. Someone was first for each of those drugs people think of now as well tested in ferrets. Oh, and in relation to references: Pubmed is a great place often to pull up abstracts of research articles on the topics under discussion. >>And 2,000 years of Chinese medicine can't be wrong >Um, why not? Just because people have been using something for 2,000 >years doesn't mean they're doing the right thing. Three of my beefs with Traditional Chinese medicine are "Dragon Bones" since many great fossils were lost to that, rhino horn given the loss of so many rhinos, and bear gallbladders given the illegal poaching even here in the U.S. to supply that trade. One problem with some standard meds is pollution, and one problem with some traditional/alternative meds is ecological damage (for instance the decimation on some Eastern Montana Echinacea has caused real prairie damage and the removal of some forms of ginseng has done the same elsewhere). Everything has a downside, too. [Posted in FML issue 3933]