SECRETARY'S REPORT. 247 



as placing the barrier of an impassible stream across the path of a 

 traveler ; the efi'cct would be to make him turn back and g-o another 

 way. For this reason, therefore, the author, in giving- information 

 on matters not generally known, has endeavored to adopt, as a 

 stepping-stone for the reader, such a, manner as could be most easily 

 understood. And in stating scientific facts and explaining natui'al 

 laws, and the deductions resulting from them, has selected the sim- 

 plest possible language, so that those the least informed on the 

 subject before, by reading may understand, and the difficulties of 

 veterinary science be hardly recognizable under the simpler dress 

 of " Outlines of Horse Management." 



With regard to the /'/»<:/ of information the reader may expect in 

 the following pages, a word or two of introduction will be enough. 

 It is now a rule with those best versed in the art of conveying 

 information to others, that to make it useful to the recipient, the 

 judgment must be supplied with material for reasoning, as well as 

 the memory stored with facts for recollection. In popular works 

 on the diseases and treatment of the domestic animals, this idea 

 has tts yet been too little attended to. In such it is connnon to find 

 rules for horse management, and directions for curiiig the diseases 

 and injuries to which they are subject, laid down with as much pre- 

 cision as if the end to be eflbcted were the measuring of a piece of 

 joiner work, or the solving of a sum in arithmetic. The disease is 

 named —the symptoms supposed to identify it stated — and then 

 the cure — do so and so — give such and such — just as though the 

 ailment were a positive entity, and every thing connected with it, 

 matter of abstract certainty, and mathematical calculation. 



Now although this style of writing makes a very plausible book 

 to read, and seems to the uninformed when perusing it, to afford 

 information of the highest value, it has this draw-back, that when 

 it comes to be applied to the things spoken of as they present them- 

 selves in actual practice, there is often but little resemblance or 

 coherency between them. Among the various diseased conditions 

 that come under veterinary investigation, there are but few that 

 when practically examined are susceptible of such precise defini- 

 tions as those alluded to. Nor do the i-esults which many of the 

 particular modes of treatment are wished to produce, follow them 

 in the generality of cases, with any thing like the certainty that 

 one would anticipate, from the dogmatic manner in which they are 

 prescribed. In the book of nature — at least in that page of it which 

 the veterinarian has to read — unless when viewed through the light 

 of first principles, there is much apparent confusion, and many 

 causes of uncertainty exist ; and the student who would rest the 

 proficiency of his acquaintance with it, on the recollection oi 

 detached facts, and the possession of arbitrary rules of treatment, 

 without the aid of scientific arrangement, and without understand- 

 ing the why and wherefore of what he is about, will often find that 

 the more he studies the farther he gets bewildered, and the longer 

 he practices, the less successful he becomes. 



Deeming it of advantage to his readers, therefore, to be possessed 

 of sound general principles, that they can apply by the aid of their 



