INTRODUCTION. 



The author is in hopes that the principles here set forth 

 may enable those for whom the work is mainly written (viz., 

 our farming interest, and those who have the care of and own 

 horses) to perceive the folly of violating nature's laws, in 

 attempting to cure disease ; also, that they may be led to see 

 the wisdom and necessity of aiding nature in her intentions 

 for the removal of the causes of disease. 



It is a subject of great importance, and should be the pride 

 and duty of every man to sympathize with those who, 

 though our slaves, have common feeling with us. Yes, brutes, 

 as we call them, have, like us, memory, ideas of reflec- 

 tion, reason, and feelings of gratitude and duty; in fact, all 

 those moral powers differing from ours, not in kind, but 

 merely in degree. 



There is no period, in the history of the United States, 

 when our domestic animals have ranked so high, or have been 

 held in such general estimation, as at the present time ; yet 

 there is no subject on which there is such a lamentable want 

 of knowledge, as the proper treatment of the diseases of 

 our domestic animals. 



How long our citizens will suffer this important branch of 

 study to be neglected, remains to be seen. The sons of 

 America are ever foremost in the field of improvement. 

 America numbers among her farming interest men of giant 

 minds, whose cry is, Reform; they demand, and will have, 



