PREFACE. 



WHILE the frequency of the occurrence of LAMENESS, the 

 consultations professional men are continually receiving concern- 

 ing it, coupled with the obscurity in which its seat or nature, or 

 both, are occasionally veiled, stamp its importance in a veterinary 

 point of view, it is a subject in which every man who keeps a 

 horse will take more or less interest, if not before, assuredly from 

 the moment the unwelcome visitor has entered his own stable. 

 And yet, strange as it may appear, with the exception of some 

 three or four excellent works on individual lamenesses, hardly 

 has any department of veterinary science, of late years, received 

 less profound consideration. Feeling this, and feeling at the 

 same time that I should be but needlessly augmenting a cata- 

 logue I complain of, were I, in the present work, to content myself 

 with superficial and common-place descriptions, I have been in- 

 duced to deviate some little from the original plan of my ** Hippo- 

 pathology" — in this, the Fourth Volume of it — and introduce, 

 in illustration of my text, coloured (lithographic) plates, re- 

 presentative of the seat and nature of the several species of 

 lameness : of the latter, at least, as much as the condition of the 

 parts affected could recently after death be expected to exhibit. 

 The Plates have added heavily to the expenses of publication. 

 It is, however, hoped that this increased cost — which has neces- 

 sarily augmented the price of the work — will be found compensated 

 for in the advantages the reader will derive from' such illustrations. 

 Faithfulness of representation I can myself vouch for; while the 

 name of the Artist — Mr. Kearney — by whom the drawings have 

 been made from post-mortem specimens of disease, selected and 

 prepared for the purpose, will, I trust, be a sufficient guarantee 

 for their execution. 



