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Quid sit pulchruin, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non. — H or. 
A Treatise on the Influenza of Horses , shewing its Nature , 
Symptoms , Causes , and Treatment , <$ft\ By William Charles 
Spooner, Southampton , M.R. V.C. Longman. 
It is with unalloyed pleasure that we sit down to the review 
of this little work. It is on a subject now peculiarly interesting 
to the veterinary profession, for it treats of a disease that has 
lately been brought under the cognizance of us all. The treat- 
ment of it has occupied a considerable portion of our time and 
attention — each of us, to a greater or less degree, has formed 
his own peculiar views of it, and it has been made the matter of 
public discussion in that Association with which the improvement 
of our art is becoming rapidly, and perhaps permanently, con- 
nected. 
Many excellent papers on the late epidemic have appeared in 
The Veterinarian, and many speeches were delivered on that 
subject in the Association, which did honour to the indivi- 
dual members, and to the society to which they belonged. Some 
master-mind was needed to collect, to analyse, to compare, 
to review them, and to assign to each its proper place amidst 
the records of the profession. With a highly cultivated mind, 
with some well-improved years of practical experience — with 
not an atom of presumption — with a kindly feeling towards all 
his brethren, and with an ardent zeal for the advancement of 
veterinary science, Mr. Spooner has devoted himself to this 
task ; and he has acquitted himself in a manner most honourable 
to him, and satisfactory, we will venture to state, to those who 
are more personally concerned in the affair, and to the profes- 
sion at large. 
He commences with the history of the epidemic on the conti- 
nent, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. He then de- 
scribes, after Gibson, the one that prevailed in England about 
the middle of the same century, and those which spread more 
or less extensively from the year 1828 downwards, as recorded 
in different volumes of The Veterinarian : and he concludes 
with a very detailed account of the discussion in the Association, 
and of the descriptions of the same disease which were contributed 
to Th e Veterinarian, a little before and since this discus- 
sion. The substance of every essay and every speech is given 
with a spirit of impartiality and candour highly pleasing. 
