PREFACE. 



The present is a reprint of the former volume, 

 which bore for title, " The Veterinary Surgeon," 

 with the necessary improvements, and such addi- 

 tions as the lapse of nearly two years of rigid devo- 

 tion to the subject would produce, as naturally as 

 the grass grows. But a slight alteration being 

 deemed proper in a commercial point of view, the 

 reader will discover the reasons in a note, which 

 was appended to the Preface to that Original Edi- 

 tion * ; as he will also in another circumstance of an 

 adverse nature, now pacified, and therefore of no 

 further consequence to the public, unless, indeed, 

 to the curious part of it, who will find, on perusing 

 the last leaf of the Grooms' Oracle, that my coad- 

 jutor and self experienced some unfairness in a cer- 

 tain quarter, now no more ! 



Whatever person would consult these pages with 

 the requisite profit, should previously read the first 

 book with care ; for in it he will find laid down the 



* I then said, at page xiv. " the volume has been a long time at 

 press, and in October last year was fully announced by advertise- 

 ment. The author could not therefore satisfactorily account why his 

 title was adopted by another in the month of April of the present 

 year," (1827«) The entire failure of that attempt, however, forms 

 one more of those painful monitions people derive from experience 



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