THE DISEASES AND DISORDERS 



OF 



THE OX 



INTEODUCTIOlSr. 



" Bacon's prophecies of the advance of science have been fulfilled far beyond 

 what even he could have anticipated. For knowledge partakes of infinity ; it 

 widens with our capacities : the higher we mount in it, the vaster and more 

 magnificent are the prospects it stretches out before us. Nor are we in these 

 days, as men are ever apt to imagine of their own times, approaching to tlie 

 end of them ; nor shall we be nearer the end a thousand years hence than we 

 are now. The family of Science has multiplied. New sciences, hitherto un- 

 named, unthought of, have arisen. The seed which Bacon sowed sprang up and 

 grew to be a mighty tree, and the thoughts of thousands of men came and 

 lodged in its branches, and those branches spread ' so broad and long that in 

 the ground the bended twigs took root, and daughters grew about the mother 

 tree, a pillared shade high over-arched .... and echoing walks between ' 

 . . . . walks where Poetry may wander and wreathe her blossoms around 

 the mossy stems, and where Religion may hymn the praises of that Wisdom of 

 which Science erects the hundred-aisled temple." — Anon. 



We take our pen in hand to-day with the hope, and in the belief, 

 that another work on the Diseases and Disorders of the Ox 

 (albeit that there are already good treatises on this subject) will 

 be found to be of great value to English-speaking agriculturists. 

 Notwithstanding that a great deal has been written on the patho- 

 logy of cattle and sheep, there remain many questions of tran- 

 scendent interest and importance — many points of doubt and 

 obscurity and misapprehension, some of which we have endea- 

 voured to clear up. Indeed, it is very well known and recognised, 



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