2 OBJECTS OF STUDY. 



generally considered necessary to begin with, or certainly at 

 least to carry on contemporaneously with, the study of the 

 practice of medicine and surgery, i.e. the study of special dis- 

 eases, that of General Pathology — a consideration of those 

 general truths arrived at from comparison of many diseases or 

 of particular diseases with each other, truths which have been 

 established by observation and experiment — yet it ought never 

 to be forgotten that the first of these divisions, the one which 

 it is proposed specially to consider, comes first in the order of 

 nature. It is from this, the study of special diseases, the 

 phenomena which they exhibit, their causation, modes of deve- 

 lopment, termination, and the textural changes which are the 

 result of their existence, as also from their relationship to 

 each other in all pertaining to their individuality, that we 

 approach the study of the more extensive and general truths 

 relative to disease in general, known by the term of General 

 Pathology. 



While thus merely directing attention to the necessity which 

 exists for a knowledge of the subject and matters embraced in 

 the province of General Pathology, with its many associated 

 branches and subjects of human knowledge, it is neither in- 

 tended, nor considered necessary in the further prosecution of 

 this particular section of Special Pathology — 'The Practice of 

 Equine Medicine,' to which it is purposed giving a rational 

 and concise consideration — that, either introductory to or 

 mingled with this special pathological teaching, any special 

 treatment or investigation shall be carried out on matters per- 

 taining to the peculiar province of General Pathology, those 

 great truths, leading facts, and acknowledged inferences drawn 

 from observation and experiment. 



For this reason there shall be left untouched the considera- 

 tion both of those complex vital processes whose phenomena, 

 more or less combined, constitute disease, as 'Irritation,' 'Con- 

 gestion,' 'Inflammation,' 'Hypertrophy,' 'Atrophy,' 'De- 

 generation,' etc., and the examination in any minute manner 

 of the varied products and changed elemental structures which 

 are met with as the special results of disease, matters pertaining 

 specially to the department of pathological histology and 

 chemistry. 



