author's address. IX 



if proper attention is given to breeding, raising, feeding, and the general 

 management of the horse, he will seldom have disease. I admit this 

 fact; and hence the second part of this work is chiefly occupied with 

 the explanation of these subjects, and the importance of observing them. 

 A healthy horse has every advantage over a sickly one, but even a sickly 

 one is often better than no horse at all, and may abundantly repay the 

 trouble and expense of doctoring him. 



In former times in this country, when the price of horses was only 

 about one-third the present value, it was not of so much consequence to 

 guard against so small a loss as the price of a horse. In those times, 

 if educated veterinary surgeons had been plenty, they would seldom have 

 been called on, for the owner would generally have preferred letting his 

 horse stand the chances of nature — or, what is worse, the ignorant pre- 

 tender — to paying the horse doctor five or ten dollars for doctoring him. 

 At this day it is quite different; but few men will hesitate paying a good 

 veterinary surgeon such fees in any severe case of disease, if such a 

 one is in reach. A horse is too valuable to be jeopardized by trusting 

 him to an ignorant pretender, or even the better chances of undisturbed 

 nature. 



If veterinary surgeons were plenty, they would find employment enough 

 even at their present high fees. But they are few and far between. The 

 men who do pretend to know something about the diseases of horses, in 

 most neighborhoods, have had to gather up their limited knowledge mainly 

 from their own experience. They have not even had the advantage of 

 books which give full descriptions and treatment of the diseases of the 

 horse. Such books as might be relied on have been, unfortunately, written 

 BO as not to be understood by the man of common education ; and the small 

 pamphlets which are met are seldom of any service in enabling one to 

 determine the disease. They pay but little attention to symptoms ; and 

 the treatment of many of them is positively injurious. ' 



