6 . PREFACE 
success. Some are satisfied with caustics, oth- 
ers with lancing and irrigations, others with 
bacterms, while a few of the more daring pre- 
fer radical surgery that removes the causative 
elements. ‘To these plans might also be added 
that of those who avoid fistula of the withers 
entirely, because of the discredit meddlesome 
intervention generally brings them. 
In every rural community of the Middle 
West the empiric finds a fruitful field for ex- 
ploitation in the many chronic, loathsome, half- 
cured fistula of the withers found in the hands 
of owners willing to try anything after having 
given up in despair the various treatments that 
have failed. 
If this book will do no more than to inspire 
the veterinary practitioner to approach this 
ailment in a matter of fact manner and to han- 
dle it according to the common laws of modern 
surgical procedure; and if it will discourage a 
continuance of the half-hearted and always un- 
satisfactory methods in vogue, the effort will 
not have been lost. The Author. 
Camp Mills, N. Y., December, 1917. 
