With that said, however, I am happy to report that my rats have responded very well to treatment with echinacea. Dottie, about one year and seven months old at this writing, and Serif, about one year and two months, have suffered from respiratory problems since they were each about two months old. Each antibiotic treatment suppressed her symptoms briefly, but the symptoms typically returned within a few weeks once she had been taken off the medication. Furthermore, while on antibiotics alone, she never seemed to completely stop sneezing. I believe that many of the alternative medications now on the market are probably ineffective, while some may even be dangerous.
Herbs certainly can be quite toxic.
Thus, they should be used with great care. However, I do have quite a lot of confidence in the recommendations of Andrew Weil, MD, a Harvard-trained physician who is also an ethnobotanist. The author of several books on alternative medicine, Dr. Weil is appropriately cautious but also is willing to endorse an alternative medication if he sees evidence that it may be helpful. I decided it was time to think about an alternative medication. Having first been careful to check multiple sources to make sure there was little chance that this herb could harm my rats, I tried it.