VI INTRODUCTION. 



College has tended much to this change ; and the benefits 

 derived from the excellent practitioners who have emanated 

 from that institution, have further added to the dignity and 

 importance of the new art. There are, however, persons 

 desirous to obtain information on the subject who cannot 

 apply to this source ; and there also are others, who, having 

 enjoyed those advantages, still wish for a condensed treatise, 

 to revive in their memories the fleeting remembrances of 

 former instruction. Among the first are such farriers as are 

 sensible of their own defects, and anxious to repair them, 

 but who cannot leave their homes : for these persons former 

 publications have hardly been directing-posts. 



Too many of the class colled farriers, however, even yet 

 are not willing to trouble themselves with learning, nor 

 to acknowledge that they need it ; hence they obstinately 

 maintain, that nothing is necessary but what is already 

 known ; that theirs is purely a mechanical art, learned by 

 imitation, and that it descends in perpetuity from father to 

 son. We even, to our regret, find one of their body boldly 

 combating against improvement in the following terms : — 

 " Whatever may be written by those newfangled farriers 

 of the advantages resulting from a minute knowledge of 

 anatomy, nothing in their practice has proved its utility." 

 Fortunately, however, for the horse, the well-informed now 

 think very differently ; they are fully aware that to the 

 study of anatomy and physiology we are indebted for our 

 improved methods of treating diseases. By dissections 

 many important errors have been detected. We now are 

 aware that the gangrenous state of the lungs, wdiich the 

 older farriers attributed to chronic disease, is the simple 

 effect of active congestion. The different diseases of the 

 bowels, notwithstanding their anomalous symptoms, are 

 likewise illustrated. We have been enabled to make the 



