39) 
REVIEW — PERCIVALL’s HIPPOPATHOLOGY. 
inquire into the causes of disease in the animal which they prize 
so highly, leaving the effects, when they become apparent, to 
the care of their groom, or, perhaps, what was worse, to the 
generally murderous practice of the first ignorant farrier they 
could procure. A great change, however, in these matters has 
taken place. A spirit ot inquiry has diffused itself widely 
amongst sportsmen within the last dozen or fifteen yeais, and 
they now appear as desirous to peruse a work of real and useful 
information relating to the horse as formerly they weie caieful 
to avoid it. The present volume, then, cannot fail being interest¬ 
ing to them, inasmuch as the object of the author is to trace 
disease to its grand first cause—its very “parent” indeed, as he 
calls it— domestication ; and subsequently to sift or unravel that 
cause, by inquiries wherein the principal changes consist , which 
the animal undergoes in passing from his native fields into the 
stable, and from a life of comparative inaction to one of severe 
exertion. He then enters upon a full and scientific history of 
that heavy curse on the stable, inflammation —the very essence 
of almost all diseases, and without a thorough knowledge of 
which, he shews, none of them can be thoroughly understood. 
His section on this head is most ably written, and his remarks 
on the altered structure—by ossification especially—to which the 
horse is so prone, together with his just and rational observa¬ 
tions on fever, plethora, bleeding', physic, and external injuries, 
are most interesting and instructive even to the general reader, 
but doubly so to the sportsman. Another good property ap¬ 
pertains to this volume. We have 330 closely-written pages 
for 10s. 6d. which must put to shame the imposing charges at 
which one or two comparatively valueless sporting works have 
lately been sent forth to the public. 
“ Now then for my say. It is merely this :—Not many persons 
unconnected with the profession, would (as I did twice) wade 
through three volumes of elementary science, even if as much at¬ 
tached to the animal in question as 1 myself am. The objection 
naturally enough raised against works of this kind by the gene¬ 
rality of reading sportsmen is, the unavoidable recurrence of 
technical, and too often unintelligible, terms, although they 
may admit the necessity of them in illustration of the subjects 
treated upon. “ Damnant quod non inteUigunt l ,” is an old 
proverb; and, no doubt, Mr. Percivall is of my opinion here; for 
the volume before me is quite free from what is contemptuously 
termed “ the jargon of science,” and perfectly comprehensible by 
the most uninitiated understanding. In fact, it is nothing 
more than a plain statement of cause and effect, in very impressive 
but very convincing language, and in the true spirit of natural 
philosophy.” 
