PREFACE. 



Seventeen years ago I published my first serious contribution to 

 veterinary literature, an edited translation of Professor Moller's 

 " Veterinary Surgery." So far did the approval of the veterinary 

 profession exceed my modest anticipations that the issue was 

 exhausted before I could prepare a second and, for a few months, 

 the book was out of print. Volume followed volume, but after the 

 appearance of " Operative Technique " (1902), " Regional Surgery " 

 (1903), and "Diseases of Cattle" (1905), it became increasingly 

 evident that the labour of preparing fresh editions must eventually 

 outgrow the powers of a busy veterinary practitioner, especially as 

 each new edition calls not merely for revision but for a careful 

 study of all the most noteworthy advances announced in veterinary 

 literature, British, American and Continental, since the appearance of 

 its predecessor. In producing the present volume, therefore, I 

 have been only too glad to avail myself of the kind assistance of 

 my friend and ever-willing helper, Professor McQueen, without 

 whom the task could certainly not have been brought to com- 

 pletion : to him I have the pleasure of expressing my deep 

 obligation and my no less earnest thanks. 



The work now before the reader includes the main principles 

 of a scheme originally more ambitious. For three volumes dealing 

 respectively with Operative Technique, Regional and General Surgery, 

 we have substituted one. In this have been retained all the chief 

 features of the two first mentioned. By judicious editing and the 

 use of suitable type, it has also proved possible to include within the 



