AUTIIOE'S PREFxVCE. 



Upwards of twenty years have elapsed since this work was first 

 published, and during that time many very large impressions 

 have been sold. So favourable a reception could not fail to 

 stimulate the author to continued and increased exertions for 

 the improvement of veterinary science, and to lead him to con- 

 sider it as a duty he owes the public to communicate, when op- 

 portunities offered, any useful discoveries that may have come to 

 his knowledge, whether the result of his own experience or that 

 of others. The present edition is called for at a favourable 

 time, as the ready intercourse we now have with the Continent 

 enables him to give a short account of the state of the veterinary 

 art in foreign countries, particularly in France, where it at- 

 tracted the notice of scientific men, and where veterinary schools 

 were established, at an earlier period than in any other country. 

 Bourgelat, the first director, and the principal projector, of the 

 French veterinary schools, has been justly regarded as the 

 founder of the veterinary art, being the first who placed in a 

 clear point of view the indispensable necessity of anatomical and 

 physiological knowledge to the veterinary practitioner. Several 

 works were published by Bourgelat on veterinary subjects, which 

 are still held in considerable estimation : the principal are, — " A 

 Treatise on the Anatomy of Domestic Animals ; " " A Eational 

 Materia Medica ; " "A Treatise on the Exterior Conformation 

 of the Horse ; " " Essays on the Theory and Practice of Shoeing 

 and on Bandages," &c. " Bourgelat's Anatomy" appeared first in 

 1769, and has passed through several editions. It was trans- 

 lated into German, Italian, and Spanish. Though Bourgelat 

 was the first to place the veterinary art on a proper foundation, 

 some attempts were made, at a much earlier period, to diffuse a 

 knowledge of veterinary anatomy, the principal of which was by 

 Ivuini, an Italian. This work was published at Venice in lo98, 

 and entitled, " Anatomia del Cavallo ; Infermita, et suoi Rimedi : 

 dal Signor Carlo lluini. Senator Boloijnese." It treats of the 

 anatomy of the horse as well as of diseases. This book seems to 

 have been the groundwork of many others that were published 



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