PREFACE. Vll 



ranee ; but science came to the rescue, and now some of the dis- 

 ciples of St. Bel, Coleman, their co-workers and kindred spirits, 

 can, by the aid of their vast materia medica, their anaesthetic 

 agents, scalpel, etc., accomplish unheard of wonders. We are 

 now working to dispel the awful cloud of ignorance and super- 

 stition which has too long lingered around the stable and barn. 

 We aim to illuminate the dark spots that have existed for many 

 hundreds of years, and to obliterate the false theories that have 

 been handed down to us by the Egyptians and Arabians, and the 

 modern jugglers of this science. 



There never was a period in the history of the United States 

 when the services of educated veterinarians were so much needed 

 as at the present time ; for the live stock of this country do not 

 enjoy immunity from those pestiferous epizootic maladies which 

 have formerly operated as a withering simoom on the enterprise 

 of British husbandmen in the breeding and raising of live stock. 

 For example : the people of the Western States complain that a 

 disease occasionally makes its appearance among cattle, to which 

 they have applied the name of " trembles," or " milk sickness," 

 and it has so scourged both the superior and inferior orders of 

 creation, that the former have often abandoned the old homestead, 

 in view of seeking a location where there seemed to be some pros- 

 pect of enjoying immunity from the pestilential scourge. A con- 

 tagious and infectious disease often prevails among swine, carry- 

 ing them off by hundreds and by thousands, yet many of us are in 

 the dark regarding its cause, nature, and treatment. Typhoid 

 affections, puerperal fever, apoplexy, and dropsy of the brain are 

 just as prevalent here as in England. Miscarriage or abortion is 

 fearfully on the increase. Diseases of climatic origin are more 

 rife in this country than in England. This is, perhaps, owing to 

 the diversity which exists in the climatic temperature of our vast 

 territory, and to our various faulty modes of management. In fact, 

 there is scarcely any disease known to veterinarians of the Old 

 World but that has prevailed in the New. 



We must have reliable text-books and educated surgeons, in 

 order to understand the nature and treatment of the diseases in- 

 cidental to domestic animals. It is not only a matter of national, 

 but of individual, policy and interest; and should we view the 

 mutter with the eyes of business men, we shall see that such en- 

 terprise must surely pay. 



