IV PEEFACE. 



it is very natural to suppose that, ere long, many candidates for the honors of 

 these institutions will knock at the door of science, and seek admittance ; they 

 must then need text-hooks ; and, in view of furnishing a part of what the author 

 foresees every teacher and student must necessarily need, he offers this, not as 

 a work pregnant with his own ideas, for that were presumj)tuous, when anat- 

 omy and physiology are the texts ; but, as a work carefully prepared from the 

 writings of our best authorities, the work may be considered as the legitimate 

 offspring of scientific observation and experience. 



Another argument in favor of the necessity that will soon exist for a text- 

 book of anatomy and physiology is founded on the fact, that agricultural 

 colleges will soon be endowed in every State of the Union ; many ^ready 

 exist; and each will, probably, endow a professorship of veterinary science. 

 With such, and among the young and aged men that may seek for knowledge^ 

 the author hopes that his work may find favor; and, if such should be the result, 

 he will have the satisfaction of knowing that he has not labored in vain. 



There are other classes of men that need a work of this description; namely, 

 the husbandman, the horse-owner, and the horse-lover, as well as the purely 

 scientific man. The three first, incited by laudable sentiments, or pecuniary 

 motives, will read the following pages, and study the anatomical illustrations ; 

 some with veneration of that wonderful piece of mechanism, a horse's structure ; 

 others for the purpose of making themselves acquainted with the form, action, 

 and capacities of the same. 



The piirelf/ scientific man, who desires to inform himself how veterinary 

 science is to be studied, — what are its legitimate objects, and its appropriate 

 sphere, — will read these pages with considerable profit. 



GEORGE H. DADD. 



Boston, January, 1857. 



