PREFACE. 



This unpretending little treatise is an attempt to supply an 

 oft-expressed want — namely, a brief, popular, and reliable 

 handbook on that department of veterinary science which 

 treats of the horse and his diseases. Although " of making 

 many books there is no end," yet, strange to say, no work 

 on this subject has appeared within twelve or fifteen years. 

 The books now offered for sale in the book stores are simply 

 republications of foreign books that were written for the 

 past generation; they comprise Youat's, Mayhew's, and 

 Percival's works. It need hardly be proved by any argu- 

 ment of mine that, in accordance with the advancement of 

 medical science in our day a new work (written up to the 

 present time) is absolutely required to instruct the owners 

 of horses in the latest and most approved modes of treat- 

 ment in all diseases of the horse. Within the past twenty 

 years new diseases, or rather new forms of old diseases, 

 (including the late Epizootic and Spinal Meningitis) have 

 afflicted the equine race in our own country and elsewhere. 

 These diseases were considerably altered in character from 

 the type with which our grandfathers were acquainted. For 

 these reasons it would be exceedingly injudicious to pursue 

 exactly the same treatment recommended in books written 

 for those times. In former days bleeding, blistering, firing> 

 and physicing were indiscriminately pursued without know- 

 ing the " why and the wherefore " for so doing. 



