PREFACE. 



In the three-year course of American veterinarj^ colleges the 

 subject of surgery is taught during the last two years. The 

 junior student is taught the essentials of surgical science and the 

 principles of operative technique while the senior, continuing 

 along the same lines, must in addition complete the full quota of 

 surgical diseases with regard to their causes, symptoms, patho- 

 logic lesions and their surgical treatment. At the opening of 

 each college year, when the new student of veterinary surgery is 

 given an outline of this vast scope before him, an inquiry about 

 books covering the ground is invariably forthcoming. "What 

 books shall I procure ? " is the universal cry of our new students 

 of veterinary surgery, and owing to the fact that the pressing need 

 of complete books on veterinary surgery has not been met by 

 English-writing authors, the teacher is forced to admit that no 

 books exist that will 'satisfactorily fill the requirement. We have 

 books on surgical technique, books on surgical diseases and books 

 on special surgical subjects, original works and translations, but 

 books on the pathological subjects and the other essentials which 

 form the foundation of surgical knowledge are wanting. As a 

 consequence the student must be directed to glean here and there 

 through works written for the benefit of students of human pathol- 

 ogy only. This condition, little less then a calamity in the pres- 

 ent-day veterinary college, will only be improved when we have a 

 series of surgical books written by and for the veterinarian. It is 

 deplorable that we should have been so long content with founda- 

 tions laid by men who admittedly have no knowledge of the 

 superstructure of our science. 



