Calling Doctor Dolittle
When I was growing up, my family used to daven at Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim, which was then in Forest Hills. At the yeshiva, all the local children liked to visit “the dungeon.” The dungeon was the lone dormitory room on the basement level. Its walls were concrete slabs. The ceiling was approximately 16 feet high and the windows were 12 feet above the floor. The solitary source of illumination was a dim fluorescent fixture that hung down from the ceiling, hence the name dungeon.
The children liked to visit the dungeon because one of its prisoners had a fish tank. One Shabbos, as we were admiring the fish, it became clear that one of the fish was sick. The owner of the fish tank (now a Far Rockaway resident) and the children went to the mashgiach to ask an urgent question: May one put medicine into a fish tank on Shabbos or yom tov?
We have just learned in Masechta Shabbos that it is forbidden miderabbanan to take medicine for minor ailments on Shabbos. The reason for the prohibition is that the Sages were concerned that one might transgress a Torah prohibition while preparing the medicines. The Mishnah Berurah (332:5), quoting the Rif and the Rosh, writes that the rabbinic injunction against taking medicine does not apply to administering medicine to animals. The Sages were not afraid that someone might violate Shabbos to provide medicine to his animals. Since an individual’s concern for his animal’s condition is not as great as his concern for his own well-being, one will not come to violate Shabbos to provide medicine for his animal. Based on this, the mashgiach answered that medicine may be administered to the fish.